The Moral and Ethical Dimensions of Dialogic Critical Literacy Learning
by
Katherine Ann Kristalovich
A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto
© Copyright by Katherine Ann Kristalovich (2020)
The Moral and Ethical Dimensions of Dialogic Critical Literacy Learning
Katherine Ann Kristalovich
Doctor of Philosophy
Graduate Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto
2020
Abstract
Dialogic learning is an essential element of the high school English language arts (ELA) classroom and the foundation of critical literacy. Critical literacy dialogues explore controversial and conflictual issues of social justice, including topics of power, race, gender, and politics. However, while the examination of power and social justice that promote reflection and understanding is an objective of critical literacy, some dialogues may become contentious and raise ethical issues for teachers who acknowledge the importance of critical literacy but are pedagogically unprepared for dialogical conflict.
Teachers must recognize their ethical role in determining the quality of students’ education and the ethical concerns of politicized classroom dialogues. Notwithstanding the Manitoba
English language arts (ELA) curriculum’s promotion of critical literacy praxis, only a limited examination of the ethical complexities within critical literacy research has been conducted. In response, this philosophical inquiry examines the theoretical foundations of critical literacy and dialogic learning, their respective moral and ethical dimensions, and explores the ethical implications teachers and students face when engaged in conflictual dialogic learning in the ELA classroom.
ii Acknowledgements
I owe a debt of gratitude to many wonderful people who have helped me in the preparation of this dissertation. Firstly, thank you to my wonderful committee: Ruth Sandwell,
Shelley Stagg Paterson, Terry Lovat, and Peter Trifonas for your engaging feedback and insights.
A sincere thank you to Elizabeth Campbell for your continual support, advice, and knowledge.
Your friendship has guided me throughout this process. Your mentoring, professionalism, and care highlight the very ethical ideals that I sought to explore in this research and wish to model in my own life.
Many thanks to my personal and professional community: the teachers, students, colleagues, fellow grad students, and my wonderful friends. I also want to extend my appreciation to the many students who teach me so much each day and remind me of the complexity and joy that this profession can bring.
Thank you to my family who have supported me throughout this process. In particular, my parents Larry and Christine. I am grateful for your unconditional love, support, guidance, and hours with Lauren during my endless afternoons at the library. Thank you for educating me and raising me with a commitment to principles that have inspired my studies and career. This dissertation is dedicated to you. Thank you to my brothers Kevin and Greg for your continual levity, and a special thank you to Greg for your editing skills. Thank you to my husband Darren for the many hours listening to my ideas and providing me with endless encouragement and love.
And last but not least, thank you to my sweet Lauren for being so strong and supportive during this PhD process. You are truly the kindest, most empathetic, and loving daughter I could have ever wished for.
iii Table of Contents
Abstract ...... ii
Acknowledgements ...... iii
Table of Contents ...... iv
List of Figures ...... viii
Chapter 1 – Introduction to the Study 1
Background to the Research ...... 1
Research Problem ...... 2
Research Questions ...... 4
Rationale and Significance of the Research...... 7
Conceptual Framework ...... 10
Chapter II – Methodology 11
General Approach ...... 11
The Process Guidelines ...... 18
Data Collection ...... 21
Research Process ...... 25
Limitations ...... 36
Ethical Considerations ...... 39
Chapter III – Critical Literacy Learning 40
Critical Literacy ...... 40
Critical Thinking ...... 47
Critical Pedagogy ...... 49
iv Critical Theory ...... 50
Social Justice ...... 53
Reflection ...... 57
Conclusion ...... 59
Chapter IV – Dialogic Learning 61
Dialogic Learning ...... 61
Bakhtin and Vygotsky...... 64
Valuable Dialogues ...... 67
Difficult Dialogues...... 69
Conflictual Issues and Topics ...... 72
Constructive Controvery ...... 77
Silence ...... 81
Conclusion ...... 84
Chapter V – The Moral and Ethical Dimensions of Teaching and Schooling 87
Empirical Foundations ...... 89
Character Education ...... 92
Moral Reasoning ...... 99
Moral Imagination ...... 106
Moral Judgement ...... 109
Moral Balance ...... 112
Care Ethics ...... 113
Exploring the Sociopolitical ...... 116
Conclusion ...... 121
v
Chapter VI – Curriculum and Conflict 124
The Current Manitoba High School ELA Curriculum ...... 125
Specific Learning Outcomes ...... 129
The Proposed Curriculum ...... 144
Language as Power and Agency ...... 147
Dialogue and Conflict ...... 150
Defining Conflictual and Controversial Issues ...... 154
Conflictual Dialgues in Curricula ...... 157
Manitoba ...... 157
British Columbia ...... 161
Alberta...... 163
Saskatchewan ...... 166
Conclusion ...... 166
Chapter VII – The Pedagogy of Conflict 169
Identity Politics ...... 172
Authority ...... 177
Resistance ...... 181
Neutrality ...... 183
Partiality ...... 186
Proximity ...... 190
Silence ...... 191
Conclusion ...... 193
vi
Chapter VIII – Indoctrination 196
Defining Indoctrination ...... 198
Critical Literacy and Indoctrination ...... 202
A System of Indoctrination ...... 206
The Legal Dimension ...... 211
Prominent Cases ...... 212
Conclusion ...... 226
Chapter IX – The Students 228
Seeking Justice ...... 229
(In)justice ...... 232
Avoidance ...... 235
Trigger Warnings ...... 238
Hermaneutical and Testimonial Injustice ...... 240
The 'Safe' Classroom ...... 242
Conclusion ...... 248
Chapter X – The Possible 250
The Research Questions ...... 253
Works Cited 268
vii List of Figures
Figure 1: Worker by Well ...... 45
Figure 2: Culture Circle ...... 46
Figure 3: ELA Conceptual Framework...... 145
viii Chapter I – Introduction to the Study
Background to the Research
Dialogic learning is an important element in the high school English language arts
(ELA) classroom and within critical literacy practices (Alvermann et al., 1990; Applebee,
2002; Applebee et al, 2003; Christoph & Nystrand, 2001; Hadjioannou, 2007; Mantle-
Bromley & Foster, 2005; Nystrand, 2006; Nystrand & Gamoran, 1991; Nystrand, Gamoran
& Carbonaro, 1998). Critical literacy supports an examination of various phenomena including, but not limited to, issues and topics of power, social justice, globalization, race, knowledge, gender, and media. Critical literacy supports culturally relevant learning
(Ladson-Billings, 1995) and authentic classroom participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991) that inspires students to consider what various texts say about our world and why (Willinsky,
2007). It encourages students to engage in dialogic learning and apply a lens of critical examination to the world, both within and beyond the classroom where they are first educated in the principles and practices of democracy (Giroux, 1988; Tanner & Tanner,
1980). Although democratic capacity to act against injustice is foundational to critical literacy, its moral dimensions are rarely explored despite critical literacy’s connection to politics, justice, and our notions of individual and collective values. Without clear, descriptive, and explicit approaches to prepare teachers for the moral nature of teaching
(Sanger, 2008), complex pedagogical discourses can remain unexplored, leaving educators, including this author, unaware of the complex moral and ethical implications of critical literacy teaching and learning.
The purpose of this philosophical inquiry is to explore the moral and ethical dimensions of critical literacy and to examine how moral and ethical education can
1 contribute to the practice of critical literacy in the English language arts classroom. If a purpose of critical literacy is to promote the examination of ethical issues related to power and injustice within society - and particularly within our own lives - (Christensen, 2009;
Vasquez, 2004), then it is imperative to explore the moral and ethical dimensions, complexities, and contradictions of critical literacy and critical pedagogy.
Research Problem
As a researcher and educator, I have been teaching ELA at the high school level in
Manitoba since 2004. In May of 2017, the Government of Manitoba released a proposed framework for the new ELA curriculum entitled the Draft English Language Arts
Document to Support Initial Implementation in advance of the planned implementation of a new ELA curriculum with the stated goal of encouraging students to “investigate complex moral and ethical issues and conflicts” (Government of Manitoba, 2017a, p. 7). This is one of twelve directives within the ELA conceptual framework. The section titled English
Language Arts Grade Band Descriptors outlines the practice of using language as power and agency:
In order for learners to be active citizens, they need opportunities to use language
that reflects their identities and enables them to advocate for themselves, their
communities, and the environment. Such opportunities would include examining
and interrogating information from multiple sources, recognizing bias, and finding
inaccuracies in the information they gather. (Government of Manitoba, 2017a, p.
14)
This description mirrors the underpinnings of critical literacy, particularly the description of students as ‘active citizens’. The first prominent element of critical literacy is a focus on
2 action-based ends. Critical literacy attempts to engage students into become lifelong activists for social justice ends by interrogating texts and underlying issues of power. This also mirrors the underpinnings of social justice oriented aims, which is further elucidated under a section entitled ‘Language as Power and Agency’. It states that students will:
o Recognize and analyze inequities, viewpoints, and bias in texts and ideas.
o Investigate complex moral and ethical issues and conflicts.
o Contemplate the actions that can be taken, consider alternative viewpoints, and
contribute other perspectives.
Learners are recognizing that one’s identities are influenced by various factors and
change over time and contexts. Learners are understanding that texts represent and
promote particular beliefs, values, and ideas. Learners are exploring multiple
perspectives, points of view, and interpretations. Learners are exploring their own
voices to tell and transform their own “stories” and identities and to critically view
their own and others’ texts. Learners are collaborating to investigate challenging
social issues, moral dilemmas, and possibilities for social justice. (Government of
Manitoba, 2017a, p. 25)
The language used in this curriculum document and its references to criticality, identity, multiple perspectives, social issues, moral dilemmas, and social justice, are all reflective of critical literacy pedagogy. Further, its incorporation of critical literacy foundations raises concerns about the manner in which moral and ethical dimensions have been attached to the broader concept of critical literacy. It is my intention to study these questions through a philosophical inquiry that examines the unexplored yet fundamental moral and ethical dimensions of critical literacy and critical pedagogy in the high school ELA classroom.
3 Research Questions
This philosophical inquiry seeks to explore five fundamental questions:
1) What are the theoretical and philosophical foundations of critical literacy?
The foundations of critical literacy have various theoretical and philosophical associations to critical thinking, critical pedagogy, and critical theory. While these traditions and approaches differ, they are often grouped together because they share common elements of criticality. The resultant ambiguity requires an examination of the historical evolution of critical literacy and how these varying and competing notions make defining critical literacy confusing. A benefit of philosophical inquiry is that it can help to clarify terminology, such as in the case of critical literacy: “Apparent misunderstandings of disagreements are often attributed to people using the “same” terms or concepts in tacitly different ways; by becoming clearer about these varied meanings, it becomes possible to focus better on what is actually in dispute” (Burbules & Warnick, 2006, p. 491). Initially clarifying this terminology establishes a more transparent understanding of how critical literacy is historically and philosophically conceptualized within the current literature.
2) What role does dialogic learning play within critical literacy in the ELA classroom?
Research suggests that dialogic learning is an important element in the English language arts classroom as well as within critical literacy practices (Alvermann et al., 1990;
Applebee, 2002; Applebee et al, 2003; Christoph & Nystrand, 2001; Hadjioannou, 2007;
Mantle-Bromley & Foster, 2005; Nystrand, 2006; Nystrand & Gamoran, 1991; Nystrand,
Gamoran & Carbonaro, 1998). It can provide students with opportunities for culturally relevant (Ladson-Billings, 1995) and authentic (Lave & Wenger, 1991) participation.
Critical literacy in ELA supports dialogic learning about the relation of socio-political
4 power issues to our lives because its authenticity is informed by relatable issues shaped by students’ own lived experiences (Fecho, 2001), issues that are “a natural extension of the learning process rather than an ancillary addition” (Mahar, 2001, p. 115). The purpose of this question is to better ascertain the ways in which dialogue is fundamental to critical literacy within the ELA classroom.
3) What are the ethical complexities of dialogic learning with critical literacy aims in
the ELA classroom?
The very nature of these critical literacy dialogues, or ‘democratic dialogues,’ may be conflictual (Claire & Holden, 2007; Fine, 1993; Hess, 2009; Subedi, 2008). I used Kennedy and Pronin (2008) definition of conflictual to describe disagreements that can be conflict- escalating. I also used Hess’(2009) categorization of conflictual/controversial political issues to examine dialogic conflict in the classroom. This includes her conceptualization of both settled issues (including prejudice, racism, bullying), for which most believe there is one acceptable answer or moral proposition, and unsettled issues (i.e., capital punishment, abortion, same-sex marriage) where public opinion is still widely split and teachers accept the legitimacy of alternative viewpoints.
Conflictual discussions raise ethical issues for teachers who are exponents of critical pedagogy but are not aware of the potential ethical complexities that these discussions can raise (Hess & Avery, 2008; Simon, 2001) including the issue of political indoctrination (Campbell, 2013). As Paul (1995) inquires, “How can we cultivate morality and character in our students without indoctrinating them, without systematically rewarding them merely because they express our moral beliefs and espouse our moral perspective?”
(p. 10). Questions 2 and 3 are fundamental to the exploration of the relationship between
5 the research around dialogic learning within critical literacy in English language arts and the position of ethics research on politically-infused dialogues as a pedagogical outcome.
4) What does moral education research and the scholarship on the moral work of
teaching reveal about the ways that critical literacy is dialogically explored in the
ELA classroom?
It is essential to examine the schools of thought around moral education and the moral dimensions of teaching in relation to critical literacy practice; moral questions are central to critical literacy and conceptualizations of moral education as well. For the purposes of this research, the terms moral and ethical will be used synonymously. In
Caring, Nel Noddings prefers the use of the term ethical but states that it is used “assuming that to behave ethically is to behave under the guidance of an acceptable and justifiable account of what it means to be moral” (p. 46). Campbell (2003a, 2008) and Colnerud
(2006) additionally use these terms interchangeably. The purpose of this specific research question was to examine the connections between these seemingly disparate fields and identify how this research may assist in clarifying the moral and ethical dimensions of critical literacy and the moral and ethical responsibilities of critical pedagogues.
5) What are the ethical implications of conflictual critical literacy dialogues for
students and teachers?
If the purpose of critical literacy is to promote the examination of power and injustice within society (Christensen, 2009; Vasquez, 2004), then it is imperative to discuss the moral and ethical dimensions of critical literacy and critical pedagogy as well. As Beyer
(1997) suggests, “When we entertain a range of possible actions within a particular setting, consider arguments in favor of this or that option, gather relevant evidence, and then ask,
6 What is the right thing to do? we are considering the situation from a moral point of view”
(p. 246). Traditional notions of the role of educators suggest that they are “expected to uphold a range of decent and civilised virtues and values and to personify them to children both within and beyond school” (Carr, 2004, p. 26). While Freeman (1998) agrees that the personal virtues embodied by teachers are important, they warn that “teaching in modern pluralistic educational settings illustrate why strong character and personal moral standards are necessary but not sufficient for ethical professional practice. Moral instincts based on personal experiences and convictions are not enough to equip teachers (or other professionals) for the workplace” (p. 31). Consequently, one could argue that some consensus on how teachers are prepared professionally to examine issues from a critical literacy standpoint in an ethical manner is required. However, what form might such consensus take?
Rationale and Significance of the Research
Teaching as a practice is grounded in professionalism and professional ethics
(Campbell, 2003a; Fenstermacher, 2001; Goodlad, Soder, & Sirotnik, 1990) and embodies moral and ethical dimensions that require careful decision-making and practice (Campbell,
2003b; Colnerud, 1997; Fenstermacher, 2001; Goodlad, Soder, & Sirotnik, 1990; Hansen,
2002; Jackson, Boostrom, & Hansen, 1993; Strike & Soltis, 1992). Thus teaching is fundamentally a moral practice (Campbell, 1997, 2003a, 2008; Freeman, 1998; Goodlad,
Soder, & Sirotnik, 1990; Hansen, 1998, 2001; Jackson, Boostrom, & Hansen, 1993;
Noddings, 2002; Osguthorpe, 2008; Richardson & Fenstermacher, 2001; Sockett, 1993).
Teachers as moral agents (Campbell, 2003a) are responsible for the well-being of all students.
7 Societal disagreements about values can make teachers uncomfortable seeing their work characterized as moral in nature (Hansen, 1998). Teaching and learning raise moral and existential questions that are at the heart of our individual and collective notions of what kind of world we wish to live in (Simon, 2001) and shape our visions of social justice, an aim of critical literacy learning and pedagogy. Many critical pedagogues have come to envision their work as moral attempts to make the world a better place (Kanpol, 1999).
While my own pedagogy concurs with this view, this transmission-like approach raises significant ethical concerns for me about the sociopolitical aims of educators. One concern is that these political aims are “prioritized over the cultivation of oneself morally and ethically in relation to others” (Campbell, 2004, p. 415), and that a teacher’s moral and ethical obligations may become “subsumed by the political” (Campbell, 2013, p. 3).
Critical pedagogue and philosopher Paulo Freire placed significant emphasis upon dialogue as a means to action, insisting that only authentic dialogue can lead to new understandings, which questions around the value of discussion within the ELA classroom.
In the process of discussion of ethically and morally contentious ideas, how do we determine the limits of our open-mindedness when we feel hurt or angered by what we hear? What can we learn from our moral thinking? What can we learn from research in teaching as a moral and ethical practice as teachers of critical literacy? Teachers continue to embed practices of critical literacy and philosophies into their teaching, practices often envisioned as a means to social justice-oriented ends. Given the political and justice- oriented nature of critical literacy, the moral and ethical dimensions of these politicized educational practices have not been sufficiently examined. As a consequence, a key purpose of this research is to investigate the moral and ethical dimensions elicited when
8 exploring critical literacy dialogically in the ELA classroom and the considerations that teachers should make to shape their pedagogical visions amidst complex politically-minded agendas.
The dialogic nature of critical literacy is not compatible with the response teachers frequently take when faced with ethical dilemmas, a response known as “suspended morality” (Campbell, 1996, 2003a; Colnerud, 1997, 2006). Campbell (2003a) notes that dependency upon suspended morality acts as a strategy for teachers to avoid confrontation and maintain peace by ignoring their own moral qualms in specific circumstances. By extension, I would argue that ignoring the moral dimensions and cultivation of our thinking is antithetical to true criticality. This suspension of morality can ultimately disempower students and educators, stifle open dialogue and dissenting opinions, and suspend their moral imagination – the act of imaginatively discerning possible help and harm that can result from particular situations (Johnson, 1993). Thus, if misconstrued, the intended emancipatory nature of critical literacy can become an oppressive force.
This criticality is also essential to ELA curricular research because the conceptual structures that we envision ultimately shape the policies and curricula that we enact.
Through his examination of educational reforms, Popkewitz (2010) notes that a
“pedagogical focus on moral relations, collective belonging, and moral values travels on the surface of school reforms. The pedagogical discourses about classroom community, for example, create a space of moral relations in which individuals form obligations and allegiances” (p. 416). In this sense, questions pertaining to conceptions of morality are fundamental to education but are not necessarily acknowledged, further emphasizing the need to closely examine moral and ethical dimensions of critical literacy dialogues in the
9 classroom, as well as highlighting the potential significance of this study.
Conceptual Framework
This study analyzes critical literacy and its various theoretical and philosophical associations to critical thinking, critical pedagogy, and critical theory, and these terms are conceptually clarified to begin this research. The theoretical foundation of this study lies in the understanding that dialogic learning is an important aspect of critical literacy learning and is highlighted in the primary research literature in the field (Bakhtin, 1981; Dewey,
1916, 1933; Freire, 1970; McLaren, 1988; Shor, 1999; Vygotsky, 1934, 1978). This perspective is prominent since pedagogical approaches to classroom teaching uphold the importance of dialogue as a process to meaning-making and the socially constructed nature of knowledge. The theoretical basis of this study suggests that determining what is socially
‘just’ and inversely ‘unjust’ requires some debate around notions of justice. Since justice is a determination of what we deem to be right and wrong, it requires deliberations of the moral and ethical dimensions that these dialogues raise.
Furthermore, this study proposes that engaging in complex philosophical discussions with students around social justice-related topics from a critical literacy standpoint elicits tensions and complexities that have moral and ethical implications for both teacher and student.
10 Chapter II – Methodology
General Approach
A unique aspect of this research is that it follows an inquiry process that uses a philosophical approach to inquiry. Philosophical inquiry is a traditional interdisciplinary approach dating back to classical philosophers such as Socrates who believed that
“reflection on the purposes and methods of education was inseparable from reflection on morality, knowledge, or the nature of a just society” (Burbules & Warnick, 2006, p. 489).
Philosophical inquiry continues to be a valuable form of research used in many significant studies within the field of curriculum research (Ennis, 1979; Flinders, Noddings, &
Thorton, 1986; Hirst, 1974; Komisar, 1961; Martin, 1970; Peters, 1974; Scheffler, 1965).
Philosophical inquiry has been advantageous in identifying contradictions or ambiguities within popular discourse, examining hidden or unexamined assumptions of particular schools of thought, and questioning educational practices from an ethical perspective
(Burbules & Warnick, 2006). Thus, philosophical inquiry carefully clarifies the meaning of terms like critical literacy and highlights the care that is necessary when we conceptualize and articulate our theories and practices (Hytten & Bettez, 2011).
Collingwood’s (2005) extensive exploration of the philosophical method was a foundation of my research methodology. One of the goals of this dissertation research was to attain a deeper level of understanding as opposed simply to compiling more detailed information, as clarified in Collingwood’s explanation of the philosophical method:
the principle that in a philosophical inquiry what we are trying to do is not to
discover something of which until now we have been ignorant, but to know better
something which in some sense we knew already; not to know it better in the sense
11 of coming to know more about it, but to know it better in the sense of coming to
know it in a different and better way. (Collingwood, 2005, p. 11)
There is a contrast between perception, the observation outside of self, and thinking, an examination of what is within (Collingwood, 2005) and it is essential to fully understand the line that divides the two. This philosophical capacity leads to a different level of understanding that embodies a unique caveat: “thought moves with perfect freedom, bound by no limitations except those which it imposes upon itself for the duration of a single argument” (Collingwood, 2005, p. 15). To begin my research, I took into account two conditions of philosophical inquiry:
First, to avoid a kind of philosophical utopianism, it must keep in touch with facts,
and never lose sight of the question what methods have actually been used by
philosophers of the past. Secondly, to avoid replacing a philosophical question by an
historical one, it must treat all such precedents as mere preliminaries to the main
question: the final appeal must be to our own experience of philosophical work, and
to our consciousness that when we are engaged in it these are the principles which
we are trying to follow. (Collingwood, 2005, p. 4)
To ensure the first condition, I became immersed in the literature not only directly within the fields of critical literacy, dialogic learning, and moral and ethical dimensions of teaching, but also in ongoing discourses of these ideas relative to my teaching and the greater education field. This immersion is most apparent in my preliminary sketch of these ideas, in particular, “where differences of degree exist in combination with differences of kind philosophical thought is more interested in them than in either existing separately; and this gives a hint that some such combination may provide the answer to our question”
12 (Collingwood, 2005, p. 57). To ensure the second condition, my research focused on my
“own experience of philosophical work” (Collingwood, 2005, p. 4). This required a continual reflexive analysis of my research and my research process through a scale of forms.
The scale of forms, a foundation of the philosophical method, suggests that every higher level incorporates the levels that preceded it and produces a distinctive component
(Collingwood, 2005). As each component surpasses the next with increased specificity, it sums the scale to that point and either negates or reaffirms the next below, making the new conception of each overlap increasingly precise (Collingwood, 2005). Additionally, the overall process is an elastic process that adjusts to the increased levels of understanding and sharper familiarity of the concepts. In this study my understanding of critical literacy pedagogy, teaching and utilization of dialogic learning in the ELA classroom, and increased ethical awareness that highlights a unique pedagogical appreciation of their correlation:
Hence in a scale of forms the extremes, being related by opposition, are
philosophical species of the generic concept; the intermediates, being related by
distinction, are non-philosophical. Opposite species like good and bad will thus
belong to the philosophical phase of their genus, and will provide appropriate
subject-matter for philosophical thought; distinct species like just, generous, and
courageous will belong to its non-philosophical phase, and must be banished from
philosophy to some other sphere of thought. (Collingwood, 2005, p. 64)
The complexity of philosophical inquiry is established by a researcher’s decisions about the scope and focus of their work. This required determining what Collingwood (2005) envisions as a fusion between difference in degree and kind towards a new understanding.
13 In the case of this study, that requires a new understanding of dialogic learning through critical literacy in the ELA classroom. The ongoing nature of philosophical inquiry is at its heart that of a critical stance:
The critic must therefore work from within. His negative position is based on his
positive: his primary work is to supplement his author's partial account of some
matter by adding certain aspects which the author has overlooked; but, since the
parts of a philosophical theory never stand to one another in a relation of mere
juxtaposition, the omission of one part will upset the balance of the whole and
distort the remaining parts; so his additions will entail some correction even of
those elements which he accepts as substantially true. (Collingwood, 2005, p. 219)
The criticism is a continued development of what I first deemed to be some need for a supplementation of the current discourse that is overlooked, and so my own work became part of that same line of questioning. As such,
the relation between the philosophy criticized and the philosophy that criticizes it is
the relation between two adjacent terms in a scale of forms, the forms of a single
philosophy in its historical development; and in practice, it is well known that a
man's best critics are his pupils, and his best pupils the most critical. (Collingwood,
2005, p. 220)
This criticality was most apparent in the continued refinement of the initial questions of this study. It can be difficult to pinpoint the beginning of a philosophical inquiry because it is in a state of continual alteration. In the case of this study, did the epicenter begin in my early awareness of the ethical complexities of dialogic learning in my classroom? During examination of how to actualize critical literacy in the classroom? Or did it begin in my
14 ongoing examination of the moral and ethical dimensions of teaching and learning? This feature of philosophical inquiry highlights that the primary focus and the development of that focus become the inquiry itself.
Since inquiry is a type of activity that aims to produce knowledge (Churchman,
1971), it should match the types of questions being examined (Short, 1991). Within the context of my research questions, philosophical inquiry considers notions of justice, a similar desired outcome of critical literacy. Giarelli and Chambliss (in Sherman & Webb,
1988) argue that the importance of philosophical inquiry is that it attempts “to make known the ‘invisible whole’ from which come the fragmentary experiences of the sciences” (p. 30) and that “philosophical problems were not always open to empirical investigation” (p. 31).
This is in part because empirical research is “central to educational research, especially within graduate schools of education, philosophical research is often not considered to be real research or, to qualify, is forced into a framework that it does not fit…(while)…empirical work makes commitments to positions on issues that are, at their core, philosophical” (Moses, 2002, p. 1). This is an ongoing issue:
Socrates showed us long ago that the philosopher is almost always faced with a
reluctant audience; and the more “counterhegemonic” philosophy tries to be…the
greater will be the pressures to ignore it or trivialize it as irrelevant—because to be
relevant under certain circumstances would mean to abandon the responsibility of
being independent and critical. (Burbules & Warnick, 2006, p. 490)
The difficulty of examining issues of dialogic learning strictly within the field of critical literacy is that it does not identify the invisible whole. Critical literacy pedagogues are exploring dialogic learning from their own particular lens, one that does not necessarily
15 consider moral and ethical complexities. Similarly, critical literacy pedagogues may not be examining this particular area from a legal lens. As such, the research remains steadfast to its own reinforced outcomes rather than considering the larger scope for which its foundations may be opposed.
Philosophical inquiry is not devoid of empirical observations and “addresses questions best answered by philosophical argumentation and conceptualisation, but empirical observations, experiences and knowledge are still relevant, even though they may not be given explicit attention” (Golding, 2014, p. 206). Henry Giroux, an indispensable voice within critical literacy research, suggests that although “forms of inquiry may have multiplied (quantitative and qualitative, as well as variations within each form), they all continue to avoid the political issue, which enables whatever dominant ideology (and methodology) to continue its hold” (in Sherman & Webb, 1988, p. 4). I believe that this philosophical mindset encourages awareness of dominant ideologies within teaching and research that may be depicted as “fads and movements that invade the educational stage”
(Schrag, 1994, p. 369). As a popular movement, critical literacy has become so pervasive in education that it often lacks the linguistic and logical accuracy that philosophical inquiry attempts to examine (Sherman & Webb, 1988). I contend that this linguistic and logical accuracy should be a recursive process within research and pedagogical practices because it can easily devolve into becoming overly generalized and vague. I simultaneously acknowledge the socially constructed and situated nature of literacies but suggest that the perpetuation of labelling critical literacy as having indispensable outcomes may imply that there are in fact no concerns to be explored and that it is therefore an innocuous pedagogy.
16 Philosophical inquiry can often highlight such fissures within dominant ideologies by its dedication to the larger scope of interest.
As both a researcher in the field of curriculum studies and a practitioner in the field of education, I was continuously faced with philosophical questions throughout this research process and in a unique “position to appreciate and to articulate the need for certain kinds of practical knowledge and then to carry out appropriate inquiry to obtain that knowledge” (Short, 1991, p. 21). Consequently, one of the most important purposes and rationales for utilizing philosophical inquiry was to elicit new ideas and perspectives on educational practices without necessarily being bound to current realities of practice. This inquiry method was especially suitable because it is ampliative in nature (Haggerson,
1999). The term ampliative, coined by Will (1988), is the process of going beyond past and current norms to envision and propose alternatives (Haggerson in Short, 1991). It is synonymous with inductive reasoning and “the scope of an institution includes that to which, taken as a whole, an imagined alternative whole is preferred which is like the given whole in some respects and unlike it in others” (Fisch in Haggerson, 1999, p. 46). Will
(1988) uses the term ampliative “as the descriptor of the intuitive sense of critical norms” that moves beyond “the norms which seem to be governing institutions, imagining and proposing alternatives” (Short, 1991, p. 46). The purpose is to move outside of “what is and envisioned with the intention of understanding in a different, improved, and ongoing manner” (Collingwood, 1962). The capacity to envision is not just essential to the field of curriculum studies but also to teacher practitioners because it proposes realistic and meaningful changes grounded in both theory and practice. And, with increasing emphasis
17 in critical literacy in ELA throughout Canada, this is a timely and valuable discourse in which to engage.
The Process Guidelines
This research followed Coombs and Daniels’ (1999) five guidelines for philosophical inquiry:
1) Identify what the philosophical inquiry can help to clarify
2) Discover diverse and conflicting meanings attached to concepts that this
conception aims to reshape
3) Examine terms with constituent words and consider what meanings are central
4) Assess the strengths and weaknesses of existing conceptions
5) Expand our current thinking around a particular conception within its area of
curriculum studies.
I began by clarifying any underlying equivocation and misunderstandings of terms and concepts (Coombs & Daniels, 1999) by analyzing the ways in which the term critical literacy is defined by theorists, researchers, and practitioners within the field of critical literacy. This understanding extends beyond empirical approaches because philosophical inquiry highlights hidden assumptions and premises of terminology and conceptual systems of thought. For example, philosophical concept analysis suggests that “If you are committed to A, and A entails (or assumes) B, then you are committed to B whether you realize it or not” (Burbules & Warnick, 2006, p. 493). In this sense, individual fields of research may each commit to critical literacy education in some respects, but may not necessarily commit to other elements that are assumed when referring to critical literacy.
18 This initial process allowed me to attain a segment of Coombs and Daniels’ (1999) first guideline in identifying a need for clarification.
This philosophical inquiry encompassed a thorough examination of the theoretical and practical conceptualizations of critical literacy, dialogic learning, and moral and ethical education beginning with an examination of analogous schools of thought from initial philosophical inceptions. Following this growth and evolution revealed emergent themes since this philosophical inquiry is ampliative in nature (Will, 1988).
Consequently, this inquiry process was initialized by explicating methodological and ontological assumptions of these three fields. This aspect of the research process was framed by Morse, Mitchum, Hupcey, and Tason’s (1996) criteria for concept evaluation, which first requires assessing that the concept is well-defined and “relatively consistent and cohesive” (p. 388). Secondly, the characteristics and/or attributes are identified. Morse et al. (1996) clarify that “While a concept may be well-established (i.e. commonly used and understood in everyday language), its distinguishing characteristics may still not be fully articulated” (p. 388). The third evaluatory process is determining if the preconditions and the outcomes are described and demonstrated through the concept to assesses its level of maturity. A mature concept is one that is “well-defined, has clear described characteristics, delineated boundaries, and documented preconditions and outcomes” (Morse et al., 1996, p. 387). This is determined as the literature is analyzed, and the elements of the concept are either increasingly clarified or become increasingly varied. The fourth criteria is determining if the concept has delineated boundaries. The concept that critical literacy has clearly described characteristics but not necessarily clearly delineated boundaries will be explored in this study.
19 This analysis was also framed by guiding principles and criteria of qualitative research including investigative depth (Shank & Villella, 2004), theoretical validity
(Maxwell, 2002), and reflexivity.
Shank and Villella (2004) emphasize three practical recommendations for investigative depth: 1) Continue examining research assumptions carefully and move into areas that have been previously unexamined; 2) be ready to shift directions as necessary; 3) and to remember the following:
Education is a lively process. The only time that it is not lively is when someone or
something is sucking the life out of it. If life has been sucked out during the process
as a result of either the research design or the reporting, then corrections to how the
study is being conducted are needed. (p. 54)
In this sense, ongoing careful reflection of the research process is required and, perhaps above all, requires a willingness to be open to new moves and directions.
Theoretical validity (Maxwell, 2002) examines the theoretical constructions of the study. As such, the goal is for the researcher to have a precise explanation of the examined phenomena where “the theoretical constructs must fit together (Auberbach & Silverstein,
2003, p. 85).
Finally, reflexivity can be defined as a dialectical process (Anderson, 1989) of self- analysis and awareness (Callaway, 1992) that involves “an ongoing conversation about experience while simultaneously living in the moment” (Hertz, 1997, p. viii). Reflexivity allows the researcher to examine “the taken-for-granted assumptions and blind spots in their own social culture, research community and language” (Alvesson & Skoldberg, 2009, p. 9). The researcher must be continually sentient and reflect upon the various stages of the
20 research process (Conrad et al., 1993). Bickman and Rog (2008) reveal the potential bias of the researcher and reactivity of the researcher in qualitative studies. To minimize these effects, they emphasize this need for reflexivity.
To commence the initial research process, the literature was first examined for word repetition. D'Andrade (1995) states that the “most direct indication of schematic organization in naturalistic discourse is the repetition of associative linkages” (p. 294).
Document survey and examination included academic research journals, online databases, as well as theoretical and empirical books in the fields of critical literacy, critical theory, moral work of teachers, and curriculum and teaching. Canadian ELA curricula documents were also examined to understand how critical literacy is described, interpreted, and encouraged. These documents were analyzed for schematic organization and recurrence of associative linkages (D'Andrade, 1995). This approach required an examination of the constituent parts to develop a clear and improved understanding of the philosophical questions upon which the conceptualizations were associated and, ultimately, mediated differing or similar perspectives (Gadamer, 1976).
This literature was then analyzed for noted behaviours and outcomes inherent to critical literacy and current research into the role of dialogue in critical literacy praxis.
Emergent themes were compared for correlations of specific and general relationships between critical literacy skills and the ethical and moral implications identified by this research with a focus on those that garnered the most divergent and conflictual positions.
Data Collection
Data collection was sourced from my analysis of the literature in conjunction with my experience researching and practicing critical literacy in the ELA classroom at the high
21 school level. This data collection was accomplished through my ongoing analysis of the major foundations of this research as outlined in the literature review.
Data collection for philosophical inquiry is different than traditional empirical research:
All research involves both philosophical and empirical elements, but sometimes one
is foregrounded while the other is backgrounded. Empirical research addresses
questions best answered by gathering empirical data, but the research is always
framed by philosophical theories and conceptions about reality, knowledge or
methodology, even if they remain unexamined. (Golding, 2014, p. 206)
In the Handbook of Complementary Methods in Education Research (Burbules & Warnick,
2006), ten ‘methods’ of philosophical inquiry are outlined with the caveat that “No sharp boundary can be drawn between method or problem definition and substantive theoretical positions, and some of the methods described here-analysis, say, or deconstruction-have certainly tended to be associated with particular philosophical orientations…” (p. 490).
This illustrates that the process for conducting philosophical inquiry is cross-paradigmatic and ultimately refined through the process which includes:
1) Analyzing a term or concept, showing its multiple uses and meanings, for the
primary purpose of clarification.
2) An ideological or a deconstructive critique of a term or concept, identifying
internal contradictions or ambiguities in uses of the term and a disclosure of
partisan effects the term has in popular discourses.
3) Exploring the hidden assumptions underlying a particular view or broader school
of thought.
22 4) Sympathetically or critically reviewing a specific argument offered elsewhere.
5) Questioning a particular educational practice or policy.
6) Proposing the ends or purposes education should achieve, either in terms of
benefits to the person, to the society, or both.
7) Speculating about alternative systems or practices of education, whether utopian
or programmatic, that contrast with and challenge conventional educational
understanding and practices.
8) A thought experiment, a method that takes an imaginary situation, analyzes it,
then gradually modifies one or another element of the situation to determine
which features are relevant to changing its pertinent character.
9) Exegetical work: A close reading of a philosophical or literary text with an eye
more toward explication and understanding of its complex meanings than
analysis or critique.
10) Synthesizing disparate research from philosophy itself or other fields (e.g.,
political theory, cognitive psychology, sociology, etc.) to find meanings and
implications for educational theory and practice. (Burbules & Warnick, 2006, p.
491)
Various elements of these ten cross-paradigmatic methods were used to assess the relevance and appropriateness of my data collection and were selected in relation to the specific research questions of this study. Not all elements were necessary such as element
9: Exegetical Work (Burbules & Warnick, 2006). Some chapters focused on specific elements more than others while other elements appeared throughout. For example, element 1 is the analysis of “a term or concept, showing its multiple uses and meanings, for
23 the primary purpose of clarification” (Burbules & Warnick, 2006, p. 491). Many terms and concepts in this research required particular clarification in order to support my speculative stance and suggested implications for educational practice. It is important to note that
Burbules and Warnick’s (2006) term for ‘methods’ do not imply “that there is anything mechanical about their application” (p. 490) and that “they rarely appear in pure or separate forms – there are countless hybrids and multilayered versions possible, even necessary, in grappling with the complex issues the field of education present” (p. 490). For this reason, this philosophical inquiry process does not adhere to a strict method of analysis but instead involves what Burbules and Warnick (2006) describe as a constellation of methods. This not only suggests a uniqueness to the process of philosophical inquiry but a measure of uncertainty about the path a study will follow and how it will conclude. It is this very nature that makes philosophical inquiry so unique and can present “different possibilities that can stretch the imagination and expand the spirit” (Burbules & Warnick, 2006, p. 501)
Chapter 3 explores the manner in which critical literacy is defined in literature to clarify its multiple uses and meanings and to critique this concept in order to identify possible contradictions and hidden assumptions (Burbules & Warnick, 2006). Chapter 4 examines the dialogic nature of critical literacy, analyzes the inherent complexities of critical literacy through dialogic learning, and begins to explore the internal complexities of dialogue. Chapter 5 introduces the “disparate research” (Burbules & Warnick, 2006) of moral education to examine the implications of critical literacy praxis. Chapter 6 explores the current educational practice of critical literacy as it is examined in the current and proposed Manitoba ELA curriculum. Chapter 7 examines the theoretical purposes/ends that critical literacy purports to achieve and how it benefits society. Chapters 8 and 9 focus on
24 the practice and complexities of critical literacy in the ELA classroom. These chapters synthesize these complexities and articulate the known and unknown challenges that may hinder or complicate the proposed benefits of critical literacy learning. Chapter 10 synthesizes this study with proposed ends that critical literacy “should achieve, either in terms of benefits to the person, to the society, or both” (Burbules & Warnick, 2006, p.
491). As previously noted, philosophical inquiry (Burbules & Warnick, 2006) has no sharp boundaries. The organization of these chapters and the process in which these were ultimately attained was ongoing. Thus similar to the 10 methods (Burbules & Warnick,
2006), there is no exact order or process that is sustained which underscores the complexity of philosophical inquiry and its recursive nature. I regularly returned to these ten suggested methods to determine how they shaped my research and the objectives of this study.
Research Process
My approach to examining the research was to apply a constant comparison method
(Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2007) where emergent themes were coded and categorized.
This was accomplished by coding and analyzing simultaneously (Taylor & Bogdan, 1998).
The rationale for choosing this process was that it “combines systematic data collection, coding, and analysis with theoretical sampling in order to generate theory that is integrated, close to the data, and expressed in a form clear enough for further testing” (Conrad,
Neumann, Haworth, & Scott, 1993, p. 280). Given the scope of the research, the initial goal became that of deciding on the process for data collection.
I employed a constant comparison method to create the initial categorization of themes/topics. I organized themes under general headings with the first three headings defined as critical literacy, dialogic learning, and moral and ethical dimensions. These
25 became the three pillars of my research in my attempt to amalgamate the research from these three disparate areas for ampliative ends. The majority of my initial research was concerned with clarifying the research foundations of critical literacy as the basis for this study.
While various research studies were initially reviewed to establish a greater understanding of the topic at hand, the research that would eventually be included in this study was selected relative to its ability to speak to the following research questions of this study:
1) What are the theoretical and philosophical foundations of critical literacy?
2) What role does dialogic learning play within critical literacy in the ELA classroom?
3) What are the ethical complexities of dialogic learning with critical literacy aims in
the ELA classroom?
4) What does moral education research and the scholarship on the moral work of
teaching reveal about the ways that critical literacy is dialogically explored in the ELA
classroom?
5) What are the ethical implications of conflictual critical literacy dialogues for students
and teachers?
The nature of philosophical inquiry requires continued contemplation and the ongoing collection of data enabled me to find connections and differences among various concepts and ideas. Research that initially seemed essential could become secondary as the recursive nature of this inquiry process led me to new understandings. Through further contemplation, I came to recognize the need for further reinvestigation if inconsistencies emerged between the initial research and the new research. Because the five research
26 questions of this study are philosophical in nature, it was important to allow research to emerge organically without adhering to an inflexible framework. When the research became too tangential, the five research questions were brought back to the forefront to ensure that the new research would help to clarify one or some of the questions.
The research was then organized by general thesis/topic within the field of critical literacy research. For example, some research focused on student empowerment, agency, social justice ends, or activism and was clustered together to create a constant comparison method for each sub-topic within critical literacy. Similarly, this process was applied to research within dialogic learning. However, as the research became more focused subsequent to a survey of over 100 articles and books solely around the foundations of critical literacy, new themes and ideas emerged. This is an inherent complexity of philosophical inquiry because one of my methods was to critically review specific arguments offered elsewhere (Burbules & Warnick, 2006). Thus even though there is a narrowing within a particular theme that is explicative in nature, there a concurrent ampliative movement towards broader schools of thought. I became aware of the integral role my data organization would play in determining which themes were imperative and those that were potentially the most prominent. This is because the purpose of philosophical inquiry is to recognize repetitive associative linkages while correspondingly identifying the ‘blind spots’ within the research (Alvesson & Skoldberg, 2009). So while the research process examines for recurrent associative linkages (D’Andrade, 1995), the researcher must closely critique these linkages for the inapparent or unassured linkages.
The following were my initial categories for organizing the research studies, articles, and books:
27
Initially, each element was organized as separate and distinct to ensure that new research was either a) prominent enough to become its own category or b) created as another subcategory of a previous one throughout the research process. As the literature was analyzed, various concepts and terms appeared with increasing frequency. The purpose was to begin by inductively examining for emergent themes by creating categories from my literature review to focus in on the analytic context. This is because the researcher needs to be open to “redefinition, reduction, subdivision, or expansion of themes as the analysis proceeds. Emergent theming formalizes analytic connections among pieces of data but does not constitute the end of analysis” (Williams in Given, 2008, p. 249). This process included drafting notes and questions, creating concept maps of the prominent themes, creating annotated bibliographies, organizing and storing research studies and articles electronically by sub-theme, and constantly comparing these themes within their emergent categories.
This initial process in the philosophical inquiry led to a point of saturation where no additional insights were gained through further additional literature analysis and, in turn, determined the quantity of final themes in the study.
As the quantity of research sources grew, adhering to the initial organization process became more challenging. In particular, significant overlap began to emerge between various areas such as in the case of examining an element such as indoctrination.
28 As predicted, utilizing a scale of forms (Collingwood, 2005) led to situations where an element of the research, such as the topic of indoctrination, could not be contained in a singular code or category. Indoctrination is more carefully examined in the field of ethics education given its inherent moral and ethical complexity but is also acknowledged within critical literacy. Consequently, as my research expanded it elicited a scope of areas that became increasingly vast.
The initial subthemes were then grouped into specific headings and subheadings.
Since my data analysis was an interpretive process, it required continuous reexamination of the types of codes and categories since my goal was to identify factors that appeared to contribute to varying conceptualizations of the identified purposes for critical literacy in the classroom. This approach initially proved to be problematic for a few reasons. First, the categories that I investigated overlapped, as denoted in Collingwood’s (2005) scale of forms, where each level incorporated the levels that preceded it. These new levels diverged into a variety of elements that could not be contained in a singular code or category, a common complexity (and advantage) of philosophical inquiry. Additionally, these divergent and new levels required an ongoing re-organization of the initial structure to incorporate and allow for emergent ideas to develop. To accommodate this expanded scope, three new categories were developed: theoretical foundations, moral and ethical issues, and issues in the classroom. These three subcategories were more specific to the context of the research. For example, the theoretical foundations category highlights themes that explore broader theoretical concerns. The umbrella of moral and ethical dimensions examined the prevalent topics that tended to be moral and/or ethical in nature; and the
29 classroom category addresses the themes exposed throughout the classroom teaching and learning process.
As this scale of forms increased, new ideas emerged and were consigned to the most suitable category. This initial process had many benefits, specifically that it allowed for the opportunity to gauge what topics continued to reemerge throughout the research.
The foundations of this research included concept analysis, historical contexts, and the ideas of notable philosophers and researchers in the field. The purpose was to apply the moral and ethical dimensions as a lens into critical literacy and dialogic learning in the
ELA classroom, rather than simply exploring the concepts themselves. In this sense, while the addressed Manitoba ELA curriculum document expresses a desire to explore moral and ethical issues, which is further examined in Chapter 6, this research applies moral and ethical dimensions as the lens through which to examine this desired pedagogical outcome.
This provided a clearer gauge for the variety of potential concerns and issues that arise in the classroom without being constrained by a rigid framework of research foundations, particularly within critical literacy.
New topics and areas emerged that would help to speak to my research questions. In this sense, the investigative depth paralleled Shank and Villella’s (2004) emphasis upon the capacity to shift directions as necessary which highlighted the interdisciplinary nature of philosophical inquiry (Burbules & Warnick, 2006). The process also continued to create the sense of an ‘invisible whole’ (Giarelli & Chambliss in Sherman & Webb, 1988) that considered some of the larger questions around classroom discussions, particularly the moral and ethical balance between criticality, learning, and creating safe spaces. My initial question about the moral and ethical dimensions of dialogic learning within the ELA
30 classroom focused in particular upon critical literacy. The research also began to parallel and merge with existing debates about the ethical balancing act required to provide safe learning environments that also permit critical discourses about controversial issues.
Dialogically examining conflictual issues and simultaneously ensuring students’ emotional safety emerged as a prominent topic in this research. It also became clear that this is an ongoing question that is of increased relevance outside of the high school ELA classroom and within higher education. This concern highlights Burbules and Warnick’s
(2006) cross-paradigmatic process that considers “sympathetically or critically reviewing a specific argument offered elsewhere” (p. 491). Therefore, the research included discussions of how higher education is currently grappling with the complexity of conflictual issues in the classroom. This becomes relevant to support the examination of both the philosophical ends and purposes that education could achieve and speculating about alternative systems and practices of education (Burbules & Warnick, 2006).
Upon closer examination, I developed a clearer sense of the answers to my research questions and the increasing overlaps given the ampliative nature of this inquiry process.
And because philosophical inquiry does not lend itself well to ‘categories’, it seemed more fitting to organize my research from a more process- oriented outcome. By staying focused on my research questions, I began to organize my ampliative research from its initial points of origin.
31
I was able to identify and examine the issues and complexities that arose within moral and ethical educational research by establishing and comparing the theoretical and practical goals of critical literacy with those of dialogic learning. What the research began to highlight was that there are in fact many moral and ethical concerns that are raised when engaging in dialogical critical literacy learning in the classroom and that the field of ethics education had much to contribute on the topic. As such, the particular issues that critical dialogues raise in the classroom became the central focus of the research. What became particularly unique about the research at this juncture was that much of it hinged on the actual educational process. In particular, while some of the research remained more philosophical and theoretical, much of it was grounded in qualitative studies that used (or employed) methods such as participatory action research, interviews, practitioner inquiry studies, and pedagogical methods in the classroom.
Given that the scope of this research is within ELA classroom teaching and learning, I decided to begin by employing a concept map. Concept mapping assists in mapping out patterns of how structures of thought are organized (Novak, 1981). While designed to denote hierarchical concepts and links, variations of mapping including concept maps, mind maps, and knowledge maps and are sometimes viewed as
32 interchangeable (Nesbit & Adescope, 2006). While my initial research began with a concept map, it evolved into a process map because as various concepts and themes were researched, they shifted my philosophy as to how and where they existed within the dialogical process. As such, these initial themes and topics would be mapped relative to where they fit in the dialogic process. The decision to employ a process map was beneficial for a number of reasons. First, it helped highlight philosophical knowledge structures
(Sowa, 2000) and is well-utilized within educational research (Adescope, 2006). It also allowed me to physically visualize interactions between various concepts (Lanzing, 1996).
The following concept map became the organizational approach through which I would conceptualize the five research questions of the study:
This synthesis method (Burbules & Warnick, 2006) allowed for emergent themes relative to complexity and difficulties to emerge. With this study’s focus on the moral and ethical
33 dimensions of dialogic critical literacy learning, the issues that were the most complicated in the research ultimately became the areas of greatest concern.
The prominent themes emerged through a philosophical approach to thematic analysis determined by the reoccurrence of particular themes. This literature review was ultimately immobilized when the saturation of literature no longer produced different results (Firmin, 2008) since similar themes were reoccurring in the literature without providing an increased shift in meaning or proposed solution. The nature of philosophical inquiry is a recursive and is an essential constant comparison method of the literature thus this synthesis was used on a reoccurring basis. This synthesis embeds a triangulation between the three disparate areas of critical literacy, dialogic learning, moral and ethical schooling and teaching to determine what the research substantiates or negates relative to the most prominent conflictual elements of the dialogic process. This initial inductive approach allows for an overview of the terrain to develop the initial scope of the issue(s) that potentially foster the foundation for an ampliative alternative (Haggerson, 1999; Short,
1991; Will, 1988).
Within the research in critical literacy, the following were the most prominent concerns around the critical literacy pedagogical approach to teaching: indoctrination, bias, the teacher’s sense of authority, classroom control, and the teacher’s own stance relative to neutrality. Specific to critical literacy and the actual dialogic learning process in the classroom, the following were the most prominent issues: difficult dialogues, silencing, proximity to issues, neutrality, and the creation of safe dialogues/ spaces. These ten areas of concern within critical literacy research and dialogic learning research were then assessed relative to moral and ethical teaching and schooling research. This approach began by
34 determining the most conflictual elements of dialogic critical literacy learning based, in part, on the frequency of the issues within the literature. I then explored how the disparate field of moral and ethical teaching research examined these same concerns. These ten prominent themes were then compared and contrasted to the curricula approaches and recommendations within the current ELA documents in Manitoba and those parts of the
Western Canadian Protocol for Collaboration in Basic Education for the purpose of establishing how the current curricula considered these conflicts and challenges identified both directly and indirectly within the literature. The Western Canadian Protocol is an inter-jurisdictional protocol that was created between the ministers of education of four western provinces and two territories to optimize resources, establish educational standards and work towards common goals (Government of Manitoba, 2000). Protocol signatories include Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, the Northwest Territories, and the Yukon Territory. This analysis would prepare the groundwork to speculate alternative conceptualizations of how to face these challenges that potentially contrast the current conventions and understandings (Burbules & Warnick, 2006). Through this approach, I was able to synthesize the disparate research for educational implications (Burbules &
Warnick, 2006) and simultaneously control the scope of this study.
From this point, as the prominent themes surfaced, they were categorized between specific concerns for the teacher and specific concerns for the students. Although many of these themes overlap in the classroom and impact both students and teachers, it was beneficial to separate these into two different foci in order to accentuate the varying moral and ethical dimensions that teachers face relative to their students.
35 This philosophical inquiry upholds the scale of forms by exploring these conflictual issues and surpassing each initial understanding within increased specificity (Collingwood,
2005). The philosophical process also elicited unforeseen areas of research to help explore hidden assumptions within a particular school of thought (Burbules & Warnick, 2006). For example, while the literature within critical literacy advocates for a recognition of the potential pitfalls of dissonant discourses in the classroom, it does not account for the potential legal consequences teachers face for politicizing their classrooms, especially through dialogic means. Thus the ethical dimensions highlight a more transparent pragmatism of the potential concerns that critical literacy educators should also take into account. In sum, while including an examination of prominent legal cases illustrative of the complexities of dialogic participation including free speech, neutrality, as well as social justice initiatives was not an initial focus of the research questions, it became valuable in highlighting the scope of the research and the ‘invisible whole’ of these disparate areas
(Giarelli & Chambliss in Sherman & Webb, 1988). I would argue that choosing the method of philosophical inquiry was essential in leading me to this disparate area from my initial research proposal.
Limitations
Ongoing limitations are present within all types of research, and the following are the foremost limitations that must be considered as they impact the reliability and validity of this research. The purpose of qualitative research is to explain various elements of a phenomenon and is often shaped by the researcher’s instinct or idea on a subject. A limitation of philosophical inquiry is that it does not identify with a singular process but, rather, with a variety of questions, techniques, and procedures. As the process of
36 completing a conceptual analysis can assume various forms, it is inherently difficult to develop a specific formula for conducting this type of study. Thus it was important for me to return to my initial research questions and ensure that those were the driving force behind the scope of my research. A useful guideline was the consideration of a range of contexts in which the concept of critical literacy was used since it can be difficult to ensure that every context is represented and explored (Coombs & Daniels, 1999).
Philosophy is “the study of thinking, and thinking is always implicitly criteriological, that is, governed by criteria by which the success or failure of each piece of thinking is judged” (Collingwood, 2005, p. xxxvi). Much of this measure of success or failure is in part discerned by the researcher since philosophical inquiry is at its core subjective and thus a culmination of the way the author sees the world (Collingwood, 2005). Thus the recursive nature encourages me to assert a critical assessment of the limitations of my own work.
First, an inherent limitation of philosophical inquiry is that is not in its own right a system because a system has a set of procedures and/or principles in which something is done and “the idea of system is incompatible with the conception of thought as constantly advancing through new discoveries to new points of view” (Collingwood, 2005, p. 177).
The complexity of philosophical inquiry is that it cannot confirm any exact finality or completeness because that is not germane to its essence. Thus any sense of finality and
‘conclusion’ is merely temporary. Further, there is no unity because “philosophy has problems so diverse in kind that they can only be handled satisfactorily if each is handled on its merits, with a freedom and suppleness of method far greater than any idea of system
37 will allow” (Collingwood, 2005, p. 177-178). This process is so recursive that elements are continually mobile: as one element shifts, it causes the others to shift as well.
Another limitation is that of objectivity. Philosophical inquiry is a struggle of objectivity because of its lack of system:
A system claims objectivity; but in effect it is only a personal and private thing, the
expression of its author's subjective point of view: there are as many philosophical
systems as there are philosophers; whereas the march of science has shown that the
only hope of permanence lies in the humbler project of adding here a little and there a
little to a body of knowledge that transcends the purview of any single contributor to
the whole. (Collingwood, 2005, p. 177)
While my subjectivity is at the core of this research, it does not impede the capacity for insights from a philosophical lens because “every new discovery reacts upon what we knew before, the whole body of knowledge must be remade from the foundations at every step in advance” (Collingwood, 2005, p. 180). My preceding and ongoing experiences teaching
English language arts, some of which I describe in this study as illustrative examples of the conclusions drawn throughout my inquiry, as well as my experiences as a violin and piano instructor, experience as a university instructor, department head, and curriculum developer all culminate to provide a distinct lens as my point of initiation into this field of research. Thus my initial departure into this research and where it has led me is immensely organic, unique, and unrestrained in order to allow for true insights that are “borrowing from philosophies of the past and in part a collaboration with those of the present” thus
“there can be no such thing as a private, personal, self-contained system” (Collingwood,
2005, p. 182). My insights are a culmination of my understandings of varying fields of
38 thought, and therefore in the philosophical context of this study, perhaps not really a limitation at all.
Nonetheless, there is one further consideration that is a limitation; it was my ability to understand the manner in which terms are used interchangeably. In this sense, various uses of terms are “confirmed by competent language used untainted by “educationese””
(Coombs & Daniels, 1999, p. 31). Given that this philosophical inquiry is grounded within the current literacy, it is difficult to ascertain if these are the ways in which the concepts and terms are generally used in practice. However, my role as researcher and practitioner allows me to determine if the research additionally resonates with my own experience and observations. An example of this is the interchangeable use of terms discussion, dialogue, and speech, each of which carries a different context or construction and had to be at least considered in the larger analysis of the research. Simultaneously, these synonymous terms also helped to establish some core understandings that remain central to a philosophical inquiry. The results that follow are explored in light of these limitations.
Ethical Considerations
This research did not include subject participants and is instead grounded in an in- depth literary analysis. As such, this philosophical inquiry adheres to all elements of the ethics protocol as established by the University of Toronto.
39 Chapter III – Critical Literacy Learning
The following three chapters outline the foremost conceptual foundations of examining moral and ethical dimensions of critical literacy through dialogic learning in the
ELA classroom: critical literacy, dialogic learning, and the moral and ethical dimensions of teaching and schooling. These three areas of the literature are central to this research and are all part of the broader areas of research and scholarship in the fields of curriculum studies and teacher development.
Critical Literacy
Critical literacy is described as a sociocultural (Street, 1984), dialogical, and theoretical and practical attitude (Luke, 2000) that explores asymmetries of privilege and power (McLaren, 1988). It focuses on systemic inequality and the ways in which it can be cyclical from one generation to the next (Shor, 1987). The most common dimensions of this practice include (1) disrupting the commonplace, (2) interrogating multiple viewpoints,
(3) examining socio-political issues, and (4) taking action (Lewison, Flint, & Van Sluys,
2002). Critical literacy learning is a socioculturally situated set of processes drawing on various theories of learning that emphasize that learning is mediated by language and cannot be separated from its particular context. As such, the exploration of these dimensions begins on a social plane and is then internalized to raise one’s consciousness.
Critical literacy also emphasizes the use of literacy as a catalyst for social justice, particularly amongst marginalized communities and includes both redistributive and recognitive social justice (Fraser, 1997). As such, the hope is that critical literacy practices can enhance equality by providing an initial understanding of issues of oppressive power and ultimately the capacity to act upon this knowledge. In this sense, Knoblauch and
40 Brannon (1993) argue that critical literacy can help to examine relationships between language and power in order to use language for advocacy and cultural transformation.
This notion of transformation is rooted in praxis, which is a process of “attempting to understand how agents working within established structures of power participate in the social construction of literacies, revealing their political implications” (Lankshear &
McLaren, 1993, p. 7). Thus critical literacy inevitably introduces students to the sociopolitical dimensions of literacy (Phelps, 2010). This further highlights that if critical literacy praxis is analyzing asymmetries of privilege and power (McLaren, 1988), then it will inevitably move into the realm of the political (Lankshear & McLaren, 1993).
There are six principal critical literacy tasks within the context of the English language arts classroom: reading multiple texts, reading supplementary texts, reading from a resistant perspective, producing counter-texts, conducting student-choice research projects, and taking social action (Behrman, 2006). The specific classroom activities and lessons for critical literacy in the classroom vary greatly, from exploring activist stories and issues of activism (Singer, 2006) to creating localized social action projects (Borshiem &
Petrone, 2006). Key to this process is that students examine multiple sources with opposing views in order to interrogate them for their inherent political aims. As Anderson and Irvine
(1993) clarify:
The importance of critical literacy being grounded pedagogically in a politics of
difference offers learners, regardless of their particular classed, raced, or gendered
subjectivities, opportunities to become ‘border crossers.’ Critical literacy, then, is
learning to read and write as part of the process of becoming conscious of one's
experience as historically constructed within specific power relations. (p. 82)
41 This highlights one of the most prominent pedagogical concerns around critical literacy: that a monologic approach that attempts to uphold a particular hierarchical relationship or viewpoint cannot support the advancement of a true critical literacy education (Behrman,
2006). This occurs because through the process of examining various positions and viewpoints, students begin to understand how their own ideologies are structured and the nature of their own thinking; there is an attempt to encourage a reflexive response in students through their processing of the ideologies and issues with which they are presented. They are also confronted with the dissonant nature of knowledge construction and issues that may not have clear delineations of what is ‘right’ or best’. This is due in part to the diversity of ideas that exist within the classroom and society as a whole.
Critical literacy is part of a wider field of multiliteracies and has been notably expanded upon within the field of New Literacies Studies (NLS) research (Street, 1993;
Gee, 1986). NLS acknowledges that student diversity in the classroom can contrast literacy instruction and is therefore separate from students’ personal social contexts (Street, 1993).
This is an important aspect because literacy itself is socially-situated and has inherent power structures (Lankshear & Knobel, 2003). Gee (1987) describes literacy as a social process that involves negotiating ideologies students are exposed to through texts. Gee’s conception of discourse is one that is relative to the manner in which language is applied as an approach to identifying the world and includes both primary and secondary discourses
(1989; 1996).
Primary discourses are established through interactions with others in a non-formal educational manner, while secondary discourses are established through participation within various social groups or institutions. The goal of critical literacy is to allow students
42 access to dominant discourses even if they are from marginalized discourses, an approach that can dismantle the paradox of access (Janks, 2010). This is achieved by engaging in dominant discourses while honoring other discourses in the process. Gee states that
“reading and writing only make sense when studied in the context of social and cultural
(...historical, political, and economic) practices of which they are but a part” (Gee, 2000, p.
180). Thus valuing the socially-constructed nature of literacies, students’ diverse cultural capital is respected and valued and placed at the center of literacy learning. As such, multiliteracies, which includes critical literacy, recognizes a multitude of literacies and literacy modes. While the field of NLS has continued to expand current conceptions of critical literacy, the term ‘critical literacy’ first became popularized upon the release of
Paulo Freire’s seminal book entitled Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970).
Paulo Freire’s philosophy of education continues to provide ongoing discussion about the purposes and nature of current education. He was appointed in 1963 as the
Director of the National Literacy Programme in Brazil (Roberts, 1994). Working with illiterate adults, he had abandoned his traditional teaching approaches for the concept of
‘culture circles’ in which he invited group participants, a term he preferred over ‘pupils’, to discuss their present social and political conditions. A fundamental aspect of these circles was his desire to replace lectures with discussions, effectively abandoning many traditional approaches to literacy education commonly employed throughout the country. This approach included three stages: exploring the adult’s social situations, conceptualizing culture through pictorial representations, and using small ‘generative’ words to assist in the reading and writing process. Some important elements of note in this process include
Freire’s ‘generative’ words.
43 The ‘generative’ words were words that were “imbued with existential meaning— i.e. they corresponded to the most fundamental concerns, ideas and practices of the adult illiterates' lives—and were thus pregnant with possibilities for discussion of daily life in political, social and cultural contexts” (Roberts, 1994, p. 309). Hence the words themselves could initiate opportunities for discussion leading to a richer analysis of the participants’ contexts. Additionally, these words were gauged by their phonemic nature and ability to be easily broken down syllabically in order to be combined with vowels to produce new words that increased in difficulty. Another unique element of Freire’s literacy approach were
‘codifications’. These were pictorial representations that reflected the adults’ daily lives and realties and that highlighted generative words either as an entire situation or only in an aspect of the situation pictorially represented (Roberts, 1994). As Roberts (1994) explains:
‘literacy’, as it is conceived by Freire, consists in much more than simply the
mastering of the medium of print: the preceding or co-existing analyses of nature,
culture, work, human relationships, etc. and the attendant posing of problems
pertaining to local and national politics are as much a part of what it means to
become 'literate' in Freirean terms as the learning of letters and words. (p. 324)
Beyond learning to ‘name the world’ through generative words and codification, Freire also understood that these adults needed to see themselves reflected in texts, but he faced a fundamental struggle:
They were apathetic, downtrodden, and fatalistic in their attitudes. In order to
change this demoralising situation into something more positive and responsive
Freire and his team needed to convince the people of their own worth, to show them
that no matter how denuded of dignity they considered themselves to be, they were
44 in fact makers of culture, of history, and subjects in life, not merely objects of
manipulation. (Bee, 1980, p. 40)
Freire attempted to create a series of images that depicted ‘culture’ and featured elements that were relatable and familiar to the participants. Brazilian artist Francisco Brenand projected ten pictures on walls where the participants met. The participants would examine each ‘text’ and were asked questions that relied upon their critical capacities, particularly around distinguishing between nature and culture, between objects which exist in the natural world and those that are culturally constructed (see Figure 1). This process allowed for dialogues around difference and topics ranging from culture and tradition to education, and concluded with an image of the group in a culture circle (see Figure 2).
Figure 1: Worker by Well. From Diafilme do Programa Nacional de Alfabetização para o Estado do Rio de Janeiro, by F. Brennand, 1963, http://acervo.paulofreire.org:8080/xmlui/handle/7891/656. Copyright Sem Derivações 4.0 Internacional
45
Figure 2: Culture Circle. From Diafilme do Programa Nacional de Alfabetização para o Estado do Rio de Janeiro, by F. Brennand, 1963, http://acervo.paulofreire.org:8080/xmlui/handle/7891/656. Copyright Sem Derivações 4.0 Internacional
The dialogic process of ‘reading’ through codifications and dialogically examining what constituted culture led participants through a process of self-awareness, reflection, and critical consciousness. The series of images led the participants through a process of thinking reflexively of themselves and their own lives.
Freire’s dialogic literacy process supports the belief that literacy practices can raise individuals’ consciousness of structural inequalities. Current research acknowledges that this consciousness is an empowering postmodern literacy process (Kanpol, 1999) because it encourages analyzing, evaluating, and synthesizing texts. The synthesis of these texts are within sociocultural frameworks where critical pedagogues make “decisions that are consciously moral and political” (Kanpol, 1999, p. 54-55). Furthermore, Weiler (in
McLaren & Lankshear, 1994) conceives that “Freire’s pedagogy is thus founded on a moral imperative to side with the oppressed” (p. 15). This emphasizes an important element of this research as the attempt to acknowledge inequity and resist oppressive power effects inevitably leads to some exploration of personal values in the process (Morgan, 1997).
46 Conversely, Veugelers (2017) argues that Friere’s philosophy may not be envisioned as moral in nature because Brazilian concepts of morality were connected to oppressive dictatorships with corresponding policies that did not support equality or social justice. José Romão, former director of the Paulo Freire Institute in São Paolo, notes that the term moral education “is not a good expression in Brazil, because it was used by military dictators in order to do ‘ideological cleaning’. We prefer ‘ethics’” (Romão in
Veugelers, 2017, p 418). This is an important clarification as it speaks to the manner in which language is socially constructed in particular contexts and interrelationships between language, texts, and power. This is also an insight into why moral dimensions (or even discussions about morals or morality) continue to be unacknowledged within the field of critical literacy and critical pedagogy from a Freirean perspective.
Critical Thinking
It is important to distinguish critical literacy from critical thinking which places emphasis upon conceptual analysis, logic, and epistemic adequacy, such as faulty arguments or evidence. Ennis (1996) defines critical thinking as “reasonable reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do” (p. 166). Critical thinking further differs from problem-solving or decision-making because it is possible to solve problems and make decisions in an uncritical manner (Bailin et al., 1999). While thinking critically may be inherent to critical literacy, the aims of critical literacy are quite different.
Critical thinking requires some fundamental elements including background knowledge, good standards of thinking, understanding of key critical concepts, heuristics, creativity, and necessary attitudes and habits of mind (Bailin et al., 1999). Burbules and Berk (1999) further suggest that there is another important distinction:
47 The emphasis on change, and on collective action to achieve it, moves the central
concerns of critical pedagogy rather far from those of critical thinking: the endeavor
to teach others to think critically is less a matter of fostering individual skills and
dispositions, and more a consequence of the pedagogical relations, between
teachers and students and among students, which promote it; furthermore, the object
of thinking critically is not only against demonstrably false beliefs, but also those
that are repressive, partisan, or implicated in the preservation of an unjust status
quo. (p. 51)
Critical literacy places students’ identities at the forefront but may inherently and simultaneously uphold the teacher’s vision for its social ends. This important distinction hints at the paradox inherent to the action-based, goal-oriented ends of critical literacy.
Brown (1970) successfully articulates this paradox:
Beyond conceptual grasp, goal acceptance implies a process of assimilation
whereby an end that was once seen as alien or external to the value system is
accommodated willingly within it. Both interest and satisfaction come by pursuing
the aim for the very reason that it is something anticipated and personally desired.
Any step-by-step systematization of the process of personal involvement in an aim
is bound to be arbitrary and oversimplified because it overlooks the uniqueness of
the individual and of his value system. (p. 182–183)
Thus it cannot be assumed that one’s individual position is necessarily upheld in a collective mindset if it’s possible the emphasis upon the ends of the process has been preconceived: “The error has been to focus on the end of the process before giving due consideration to the beginning, to ignore the aimer and his aim and to assume that the aimer
48 can always be briefed on what to aim at by those somehow better qualified to know”
(Brown, 1970, p. 184). Rather, the philosophical foundations of critical literacy suggest that the learner should instead be encouraged “as a perceiving, value-making subject, free to respond in his way, according to his individual nature, rather than to the values of others or the supposedly homogenous nature of his generalized group” (Brown, 1970, p. 186).
This highlights an initial ethical concern within this philosophical inquiry: that students may suppose that they are participating in the examination of a topic with a particular level of subjectivity and individuality, when greater collective ends may in fact be preconceived and predominate over their individual stance. This raises an ethical concern because critical literacy foundations argue that this is a literacy to counter oppression, particularly amongst students who may require it most. In essence, these students may be further marginalized by educative aims that dismiss their individual stance and re-subject them, unsuspectingly, to another form of systemic domination under the guise of being ‘about’ them. Much of this concern may be most evident through the examination of the actual teaching process of critical literacy, referred to as critical pedagogy.
Critical Pedagogy
Critical pedagogy explores the manner in which education as cultural knowledge can perpetuate or legitimize social injustice (or an unjust status quo) and transform oppressive or inequitable institutions and social relations. As Beck (2005) explains, critical pedagogy “applies the tenets of critical social theory to the educational arena and takes on the task of examining how schools reproduce inequality and injustice, yet may also be sites for individuals to gain critical consciousness and participate in the transformation of their
49 society” (p. 383). Critical pedagogy includes a range of associations including resistant pedagogy (Giroux, 1983), border pedagogy (Giroux, 1988), and liberatory pedagogy (Shor
& Freire, 1987). Often, educators who envision themselves as proponents of critical literacy also see themselves as critical pedagogues given their liberatory and emancipatory ends.
It is suggested that critical pedagogy is actualized through a critical literacy approach to teaching and learning because critical pedagogues believe that schools and classrooms are microcosms that reflect external social injustices (Applebaum, 2003). It is a praxis-oriented philosophy which implies that action is based upon reflection that upholds a commitment to human well-being and practical ethical judgment (Carr & Kemmis, 1986;
Comber, 2001). Critical pedagogues can enact this action-based approach through the myriad of critical literacy frameworks and models (Freebody & Luke, 1990; Janks, 2000;
Lewison, Leland, & Harste, 2008) that have strong ties to critical theory. These specific frameworks and models are examined more closely in Chapter 6.
Critical Theory
Freire’s philosophy of critical literacy is grounded in critical theory and examines the particular workings of power and possible social injustices between aspects of culture, education, economy, and governance (Popkewitz & Fendler, 1999). Critical theory “is concerned with the role of institutions, such as schools, in propagating economic, social, and political inequities” (Mthethwa-Sommers, 2014, p. 10).
Critical theory is closely associated with the Frankfurt School, a group of “social theorists, philosophers, economists, sociologists, and literacy theorists at the Frankfurt
University’s Institute for Social Research from the mid-1920s through the late 1960s”
50 (Morrell, 2008, p. 43). It included philosophers Max Horkheimer, Eric Fromm, Jürgen
Habermas, and Theodor Adorno. Horkheimer noted that Adorno stated that, “It is part of morality not to be at home in one’s home” (Said, 1993, p. 120), in part an ethical critique upon which critical theory was conceptualized (Willinsky, 2007). Adorno additionally stated that “praxis is a source of power for theory, but cannot be prescribed by it” (in Cook,
2014, p. 141). This theory posits that regardless of socio-economic status, all children can achieve a high status, and that the aims of education should be tailored to meet the needs of all children (Levitas, 1974). Critical theorists view education as a suppressive mechanism with certain approaches to learning purposefully designed to maintain existing societal power structures. The central anthropological assertion of critical theory is that individuals have a genuine interest in a rationally organized society (Miedema & Wardekker in
Popkewitz & Fendler, 1999).
There are, however, others who have questioned these traditions in attempts to broaden what these ‘critical’ traditions encompass. Kathleen Weiler (1991) presents a feminist critique of traditional Western knowledge systems and questions Freire's assumption of a singular experience of oppression and abstract goals for liberation. This parallels the work of philosophers who value conceptualizations of pedagogy that acknowledge and care for the entirety of a person as opposed to abstract intellect (Grumet,
1988; Noddings, 1993). For example, Thayer-Bacon (1998) critiques conceptualizations of critical thinking that ignore imagination, intuition, and feelings because “without problematizing critical thinking’s high status in the Euro-western Enlightenment world, what one ends up doing is recapitulating and reformulating critical thinking within its given
51 structure” (p. 137). Hence critical theorists continually critique conceptualizations of
‘critical’ traditions as well.
Other important contributions to the field include progressive educators John
Dewey and George Counts, a leader of the Social Reconstructionism school of thought, who advanced the correlation between education and democracy amongst the working class and promoted the need to contest social inequity and gain social and cultural capital, a goal of critical literacy. In fact, Dewey (1959) noted the importance of understanding conceptualizations of what constitutes moral as a type of social understanding:
We have associated the term ethical with certain special acts which are labeled
virtues and are set off from the mass of other acts, and are still more divorced from
the habitual images and motives of the children performing them. Moral instruction
is thus associated with teaching about these particular virtues, or with instilling
certain sentiments in regard to them. The moral has been conceived in too goody-
goody a way. Ultimate moral motives and forces are nothing more or less than
social intelligence – the power of observing and comprehending social situations –
and social power – trained capacities of control – at work in the service of social
interest and aims. (pp. 42–43)
What Dewey is describing is very much the essence of critical literacy: understanding the world around us and “comprehending social situations” in the “service of social interests and aims” where moral motives are a form of social intelligence. Critical literacy emerges as a social perception of oppression that works in opposition to the idealized or envisioned social aims and interests of the collective. Critical literacy focuses on the ways literacy is
52 and can be used for social justice within marginalized and disenfranchised communities
(Luke, 2012).
Social Justice
Social justice education within critical literacy supports “a disposition toward recognizing and eradicating all forms of oppression and differential treatment extant in the practices and policies of institutions, as well as a fealty to participatory democracy as the means of this action” (Murrell, 2006, p. 81). Social justice does not have a single meaning as “it is embedded within discourses that are historically constituted and that are sites of conflicting and divergent political endeavors” (Rizvi, 1998, p. 47). In teaching for social justice, Ayers (2010) explains:
Teaching for social justice begins with the idea that every human being is of equal
and incalculable value, entitled to decent standards of freedom and justice, and that
any violation of those standards must be acknowledged, testified to, and fought
against. The challenge is to find the capacity to oppose injustice, to stand up on
behalf of the dis-advantaged in a time when power is so consolidated and unfairly
weighted against them. (p. 791)
Social justice can be described as a both a process and goal that enables “full and equal participation of all groups in a society that is mutually shaped to meet their needs” (Adams et al, 2007, p. 3) with the goal of justice-oriented citizens that collectively consider the social, economic and political complexities of power systems (Westheimer & Kahne,
2004).
Social justice pedagogy maintains the importance of building students’ skills and knowledge to identify ways that institutions can be fair and humane (Westheimer &
53 Suurtamm, 2009) and encourages them to actively participate in their own learning. For proponents of social justice, it is a foundation of education:
The denial of basic human rights, the destruction of the environment, the deadly
conditions under which people (barely) survive, the lack of meaningful future for
the thousands of children…is a reality that millions of people experience in their
bodies everyday. Educational work that is not connect deeply to a powerful
understanding of these realities…is in danger of losing its soul. Our lives of our
children demand no less. (Apple, 1995, p. 5)
Increasingly, however, the language of social justice is occasionally viewed as overly ambiguous or controversial (Wasley, 2006). Social justice-influenced curriculums may be deemed superfluous or complicating, as “an ambiguous and vague slogan with multiple instantiations, no clear and consistent professional definition, and inadequate theoretical grounding” (Cochran-Smith et al, 2009, p. 626). Having a clearer definition of social justice within the context of critical literacy is important because it can be unclear, in practical terms, precisely what we understand when we envision social justice within program development, curriculum, and educational philosophy (Hytten & Bettez, 2011).
Part of the difficulty therein is that understanding the philosophical foundations of what is construed as social justice is complex, critiqued for being “allowed to float in the air as if everyone will recognize an instance of it when it appears” (Novak, 2000, p. 1), a similar complexity of agreeing to what constitutes critical literacy.
Others argue that in order to truly understand the moral dimensions of social justice issues, it is essential to examine issues contextually. As Wilkinson states:
54 Moral demands are always concrete, even if not always immediate. The relief of the
starving in Africa is the relief of concretely hungry persons. Any resolution of
suffering begins with the particularity of this suffering. If it is to be understood that
understanding is necessarily in the context of actuality; to know in abstract what
hunger is is not the same as the understanding of this person’s hunger. (1999, p.
150)
Hytten and Bettez (2011) additionally suggest that in examining the topic of social justice,
“the abstract language of philosophy is often alienating and seemingly tangential to the everyday concerns of most education practitioners” (p. 12). This idea of philosophy as alienating may also extend to our high school students as well; in my experience as a classroom teacher, students are often eager to develop a philosophical underpinning of issues because they can use philosophical foundations to frame their thinking by gauging the ways in which these philosophies either support or refute their own thinking. This requires us to enter conversations around what we consider to be just.
I argue that it would be unusual for dialogues that encompass conceptualizations of justice not to deconstruct and consider what we conceptualise as justice itself. Many philosophers have been pivotal in establishing the philosophical foundations that we examine from a social justice lens. In Iris Marion Young’s book Justice and the Politics of
Difference (2011), notions of justice are examined from a philosophical and theoretical perspective and highlight three important philosophies: liberal individualism, market individualism, and social democracy. Liberal individualism suggests that fairness is a central feature of justice. Rawls’ (1972) notion of fairness is highlighted in his belief that each person is entitled to as much freedom as long as others share the same freedom and
55 that social goods should be equally distributed and allocated in ways that benefits the least privileged members of society. This runs counter to the concept of market individualism, the philosophical assertion that individuals are entitled to social goods in relation to their efforts. Consequently, it is “the justice of competition—that is, the way competition was carried out and not its outcome—that counts” (Rizvi, 1998, p. 49). The social democratic perspective highlights justice in relationship to the needs of individuals and emphasizes a collectivist or cooperative vision of society. These distinctions are important when discussing notions of social justice critically because the term ‘social justice’, despite being used interchangeably, may be conceptualized very differently from person to person. Rawls additionally understood that liberal societies entail disagreements about justice, and his work further highlighted the complex notions of justice that plural societies must address:
For Rawls, a politically liberal society is one in which citizens are free within
reasonable limits to adopt for themselves the particular conceptions of the good that
seem most appropriate to them as individuals and as members for cultures,
communities, and other associations. In other words, they can determine the
purposes and ways of living that seem to them to be most meaningful. For this
reason, the members of a liberal society are likely to be in considerable
disagreement over their most fundamental moral and intellectual commitments and
in particular about the metaphysical premises that justify those commitments. (Bull,
2006, pp. 22–23)
Bull’s (2006) position highlights that what individuals consider meaningful is subjective and can be fraught with disagreement. For this reason, social justice aims within critical literacy should evoke a complex array of positions and stances that address
56 conflicting philosophies of individualism. I would argue that if social justice dialogues only address a particular philosophy of individualism, students may not appreciate the natural complexity of distinctive philosophical stances that are part of the process in evaluating the competing systems that may create social injustices in the first place. Thus classroom dialogues around notions of justice require an examination of competing stances as well as opportunities to synthesize this information, an element of critical literacy that is often referred to as reflection.
Reflection
Reflection is an essential element of critical literacy. It can be defined as an ongoing critique (Van Manen, 1995), opportunity for new knowledge that informs new action
(Habermas, 1990), and is deemed essential in order to engage in a transformative learning experience (Bengtsson, 1995). Within the field of critical literacy, Freire’s (1970) notion of praxis is a sort of equilibrium between reflection and action. He explains:
Liberation is a praxis: the action and reflection of men and women upon their world
in order to transform it. Those truly committed to the cause of liberation can accept
neither the mechanistic concept of consciousness as an empty vessel to be filled,
nor the use of banking methods of domination (propaganda, slogans — deposits) in
the name of liberation. (p. 79)
Dewey (1933) envisioned reflection as being “active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it, and the further conclusions to which it tends” (p. 6) in attempts to “transform a situation in which there is experienced obscurity, doubt, conflict, disturbance of some sort, into a situation that is clear, coherent, settled, harmonious” (Dewey as cited in Campbell, 1995, p.
57 57). These conceptualizations of the purposes for reflection emphasize its potential transformative nature in a larger societal sense.
For educators, reflection is also a necessary element to achieving professional ends.
Teaching is shaped by a teacher’s ability to not only be reflexive but also to discern what they need to reflect upon:
Reflective practitioners think about their experiences in practice and view them as
opportunities to learn. They examine their definitions of knowledge, seek to
develop broad and multifaceted types of knowledge, and recognise that their
knowledge is never complete. Reflective practitioners are concerned about the
contexts of their practices and the implications for action. They reflect on
themselves, including their assumptions and their theories of practice, and take
action grounded in self-awareness. Finally, reflective practitioners recognize and
seek to act from a place of praxis, a balanced coming together of action and
reflection. (Kinsella, 2001, p. 198)
This notion of reflection may support an ethical mindset which sees teachers continually examining their actions relative to their vision of successful pedagogy and adjusting their approaches to ensure successful learning. Teachers regularly reflect upon their interactions with students and think about how to better actively engage and connect with their students. It is important to note that this kind of reflection requires opportunities to carefully think about ways to improve both pedagogy and relations. This could be relationships with students as well as colleagues and how to best maintain open, respectful and transparent communication that contributes to a positive teaching and learning environment.
58 Reflection is also a valuable strategy for students – for example, in inquiry-based education and collaborative learning communities – because students are continually thinking about the manner in which they are participating relative to others. It is important to note that reflexivity is not confined to critical literacy and is an approach with a long history in education and self-regulated learning (Zimmerman & Schunk, 2011) although it is also a fundamental characteristic of critical literacy teaching and learning.
Conclusion
The historical and theoretical foundations of critical literacy highlight the importance of analyzing asymmetries of privilege and power (McLaren, 1988), examining culture and the realm of the political (Lankshear & McLaren, 1993), and exploring issues of personal and societal inequity that can lead to some exploration of values. Research within critical literacy, critical pedagogy, critical theory, as well as the notable works of
Paulo Freire and John Dewey, emphasize the importance of criticality as a process towards anti-oppressive, social justice-oriented ends that are grounded in reflexivity. Critical literacy is by its very nature a dialogical process of examining notions of culture, identity, self-awareness, increased recognition of the importance of reflection, and ultimately, critical consciousness.
In particular, the work of Paulo Freire sought to empower participants through a criticality that would allow them to see both the reality of oppression and inequity as it was normalized relative to their own lives, and help them envision the change that they could pursue to improve their lives. This shift required personal action or it would simply amount to awareness, an ends that maintains the status quo and offers no hope for a better life. This foundation is important for current critical literacy educators to understand because Freire’s
59 participants had a collective vision; they were all part of the same cultural, socioeconomic, political, and oppressive set and thus had the same vision for a prospective collective outcome. This greatly differs from how Freire could enact his vision of critical literacy in today’s classrooms where students represent a much more varied cultural, socioeconomic, political, and possibly oppressive collective with differing values and notions of a prospective collective outcome. However, the capacity for truth and self-awareness should outweigh the desire for action-based collective outcomes because end-based objectives independent from a conscious-raised and experiential understanding are inauthentic to the participant. It is inauthenticity that critical literacy attempts to combat in order to push-back against extrinsically proposed ends that can often have a hidden oppressive agenda. This is why Freire’s role within critical literacy has been paramount. He recognized that reading, truth, culture, politics, power, identity, and justice are inexplicitly tied together, and attempts to attain the understanding of one to the exclusion of others is futile. Freire’s work additionally reveals that he endeavored to empower participants to recognize their own inherent capacity and begin ‘reading’ by perceiving their own realities subjectively and in their own ways without sacrificing their individual identities for the collective group.
Complexities of such conflict are most apparent in classrooms when critical literacy teaching and learning through the dialogical process, generally referred to as dialogic learning, is embedded into curricular and pedagogical practices.
60 Chapter IV– Dialogic Learning
Classroom discussions are foundational to learning. In sharing thoughts and experiences that promote learning and develop meaningful relationships, these initial conversations transform into complex and evocative dialogues. In fact, the term dialogue comes from the Greek dialogos, ‘dia’, meaning through, and ‘logos’, meaning the word
(Bohm, 2006). Rising above casual conversation, dialogue emphasizes questioning our own assumptions, analyzing, and breaking things up in the process (Bohm, 2006), a reflective process that “evokes a counterargument that pushes itself beyond the other and pushes the other beyond itself” (Lipman, 1991, p. 232). Research suggests that the dialogic process can elicit critical thinking development (Ten Dam & Volman, 2004) and critical thinking dispositions including “analyticity, cognitive maturity, CT self-confidence, self evaluation, open-mindedness, [and] truth-seeking” (Hajhosseiny, 2012, p. 1358). In this case, analyticity is defined as “being alert to potentially problematic situations, anticipating possible results or consequences, and prizing the application to reason and the use of evidence even if the problem at hand turns out to be challenging or difficult” (Hajhosseiny,
2012, p. 1359). The dialogic process is also exploratory (Burbules, 1993), empowering
(Alexander, 2006), supports democratic aims (Brookfield & Preskill, 1999), and can help students overcome academic inequalities (Applebee, Langer, Nystrand, & Gamoran, 2003).
Educators continue to understand that the quality of dialogic classroom discourses impacts student learning, requires attention to oral skills (Nystrand & Gamoran, 1991), enhances comprehension (Skidmore, 2000) and increases in-depth learning, recall of texts and content, and overall engagement (Langer, 2001). Dialogue is commonly used
61 synonymously with terms including dialogic inquiry (Wells, 1999), exploratory talk
(Mercer, 1995), discussion (Cazden, 1988), and dialogic teaching (Alexander, 2008).
As opposed to monologically organized classroom activities, dialogic learning supports an intersecting of opinions and ideas that can lead to new understandings
(Anagnostopoulos et al, 2008) particularly in the English language arts classroom. Dialogic teaching and learning emphasize student-centered approaches for collaborative and engaging classroom learning (Juzwik, Borsheim-Black, Caughlan, & Heintz, 2013), and studies suggest that dialogic learning in the ELA classroom is associated with improved reading performance (Nystrand, 2006) and writing (Nystrand, Gamoran, & Carbonaro,
1998). Dialogue can also elicit more inferential responses to texts from students
(Alvermann & Hayes, 1989), and is an important process of attaining increased academic achievement (Wells & Chang-Wells, 1992).
Dialogue is also an important element within the field of oracy, and the work of
Wilkinson (1965) ensured that what he termed as “oracy” was an important part of what is defined as literacy. The importance of oracy gained prominence upon the completion of the
National Oracy Project conducted by the National Curriculum Council from 1988 to 1993 throughout England and Wales (Kemeny, 1993) which revealed the value and centrality of talk in education (Wells, 1992). The study examined the ways that speaking and listening connected to curriculum in an effort to understand the importance of these skills in an environment of increased emphasis upon reading and writing and reinforced the importance of talk as a form of learning. As Wells (1992) argues, “The centrality of talk in education is finally being recognised. Not simply in theory – in the exhortations of progressive-minded academics - but mandated at all levels across all subjects in a national curriculum” (p. 283).
62 A key element of dialogue is that through productive dialogues, students participate in extended turns that encourage them to reason and build on each other’s ideas, supporting a cumulative exchange process (Hennessy et al., 2016).
While the research points to dialogic learning's many benefits, it has been argued that the emphasis upon dialogue in citizenship education does not necessarily suggest that all dialogues provide educational value:
However, only a few of these studies actually elaborate on the qualities of student
dialogue that are required to achieve the various goals that are set for citizenship
education. Most studies go no further than claiming 'dialogue makes a difference'.
However, it is questionable whether every kind of interaction will create productive
learning opportunities to the same extent. (Schuitema et al, 2011, p. 87)
Schuitema et al. (2011) additionally suggest that both the structural features and content of dialogues are key and that they should be co-constructed. They highlight the need to have some degree of mutual understanding whereby students ‘check’ their behavior, which includes “verifying questions and all types of confirming, accepting or denying responses”
(p. 88). They also argue that moral values are central to these dialogues and should be explicitly stated and discussed. In their own studies, they note:
The quality of the content of the dialogues appeared to be related to students' ability
to take moral values and multiple perspectives into account when justifying their
viewpoints. Students who participated in groups that made more value-related
utterances in their dialogue, also referred more often and more explicitly in their
individually written essays to moral values and were better able to validate the
different perspectives. The results indicate that students “used” the dialogue with
63 others to write their own essays. (pp. 99–100)
This furthers the research on the impact that dialogic learning can have upon individual conceptualization and writing in the ELA classroom.
Bakhtin and Vygotsky
Research around dialogic learning is influenced by numerous researchers and philosophers, namely those examining the construction of language and language development in children and is informed by many other fields including cultural psychology, linguistics, and discourse analysis. Two instrumental theorists in this area include Mikael Mikhailovich Bakhtin and Lev Vygotsky who explored the ways children learn and develop through the dialogic process.
Mikhail Bakhtin (1895–975) asserted that language is a social process and individual voices (both in conversation and literature) do not exist in isolation and can only represent an aspect of our experiences, interactions, and perceptions throughout our lives
(Bakhtin, 1981). When we are in dialogue with others, our voices represent a socially constructed polyphonic stance where comprehension and meaning are contextualized.
Bakhtin theorized that these interactions between speakers and listeners represent sociocultural and sociohistorical worldviews, and that meaning is not only between people but the frames they use as a way of categorizing their experiences. As such, consciousness is relative; it is a relationship of perceived and experienced reality within a particular social location:
Consciousness is based on otherness. This otherness is not merely a dialectical
alienation on its way to a sublation that will endow it with a unifying identity in
higher consciousness. On the contrary: in dialogism consciousness is otherness.
64 More accurately, it is the differential relation between a center and all that is not
that center. (Holquist, 1990, p. 17)
Bakhtin was a champion of the Neo-Kantian school of philosophy and upheld
Kant’s theory of interaction that suggests that thought is a synthesis of sensibility (the realm of physical sensation) and understanding. While Bakhtin did not use the term dialogism (Holquist, 1990), this theory suggests that individuals ultimately produce and organize their social realities through talk. Bakhtin’s theories also parallel those of Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913) in recognizing that an individual speaker’s space is a specific point within physical and social worlds. Saussure states, “It would be absurd to attempt to sketch a panorama of the Alps by viewing them simultaneously from several peaks of the Jura; a panorama must be made from a single vantage point. The same applies to language” (Burke, Crowley & Girvin, 2000, p. 57), where the speaker is a sort of locale or language state.
Theorist Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934) additionally recognized the importance of examining social and cultural influences upon childhood development and that learning takes place within cultural and historical contexts (Vygotsky, 1978). Vygotsky argued that language enables thought and can produce learning through interaction with others. As such, the ability to communicate with others and think critically is a part of the social nature of learning in education. This dialogic learning is also essential to critical literacy but can be difficult to create:
Almost by definition, it is difficult to see the limitations and lacunae in our own
understandings; hence maintaining both the social conditions in which such
conversations can occur (conditions of plurality, tolerance, and respect) as well as
65 the personal and interpersonal capacities, and willingness, to engage in such
conversations, becomes a central dimension of criticality–it is not simply a matter
of individual abilities or dispositions. (Burbules & Berk, 1999, p. 61)
Vygotsky stated that children have a zone of proximal development, the “actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the higher level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers” (1978, p. 86). He claimed that this zone is essential for educators to understand in order to interpret how children are developing and from which point. Key to this understanding, however, is the importance of understanding imitation. According to Vygotsky (1978), “Children can imitate a variety of actions that go well beyond the limits of their own capabilities. Using imitation, children are capable of doing much more in collective activity or under guidance of adults” (p. 88). If these conditions are met within classroom spaces, then students may feel more confident engaging in ‘authentic’ dialogues where they explore issues of interest, share their ideas and opinions, and build upon each other’s contributions (Hadjioannou, 2007).
These kinds of authentic dialogues can help prepare students for social engagement within a democratic society (Applebee, 2002). In my experience, most students find authentic dialogues enjoyable and meaningful and appreciate opportunities to share opinions and ideas, explore alternative viewpoints, and raise topics of interest that may not have otherwise been discussed. As Conroy and Davis (2000) suggest, “Any usable definition of authenticity must include a recognition of it as a moral discourse, the salience of which is directed from the fullest possible comprehension of the self, to the fullest possible comprehension of other” (p. 271). Freire (1970) describes this dialogic
66 authenticity as one that must come from the students, stating that a “teacher’s thinking is authenticated only by the authenticity of the students’ thinking. The teacher cannot think for her students, nor can she impose her thought on them” (p. 77). These two positions complement each other in that they envision authenticity as being responsive and reflexive.
Valuable Dialogues
The benefits of dialogic learning within schools is well-researched. Bridges (1979) suggests that engaged discourses most benefit from some conditions: that there are multiple points of view, that participants consider multiple points of view, and that there is an intention to seek knowledge, understanding, and truth. Additionally, participants can practice sharing their ideas (Simon, 2001) and have opportunities to cognize a variety of standpoints (Myhill, 2007). Dialogues also promote a more comprehensive understanding of a topic because the process encourages building knowledge and ideas. This process can assist students to consider other unexamined assumptions and develop the capacity to see beyond themselves and through different perspectives born of various life-experiences.
Teachers can support this process by creating spaces where students’ voices are at the center of dialogic learning:
When teachers acknowledge and encourage student voice and responsibility, they
help to prepare students for engaged citizenry. Students learn to trust one another,
listen with care and empathy, disagree respectfully, and use feedback to refine and
improve their work. They learn what it feels like to be treated fairly by peers and
teachers. These are vital lessons in a student's life. (Mantle-Bromley & Foster,
2005, p. 72)
Furthermore, engaging in dialogues are opportunities to recognize and appreciate
67 moral pluralism. Strike (1999) explains:
[J]ustice and caring aim at different moral goods, they may conflict. When teachers
grade, they may wish to encourage, and they may wish to give each student what he
or she deserves. They may not be able to do both. One account of such a conflict is
moral pluralism. Moral pluralism says that moral goods are irreducibly many and
often conflict. It is part of the human condition and we cannot achieve every good
fully in every situation. (p. 21)
Similarly, Haydon (2000) notes that discussions of values can impact students in that they highlight a variety of viewpoints, help them to understand how others determine their viewpoints, help to clarify their own viewpoints, give them opportunities to test their viewpoints, and possibly lead them to agreement on various issues. He explains, “If I am in a situation where professional responsibilities, family loyalties, and considerations of kindness and fairness create a dilemma, then even if this is my problem and no one else’s, discussion with someone else may help me to see my way through the difficulty” (Haydon,
2000, p. 53). The purpose of these dialogues is not to reach consensus or a singular viewpoint. Conversely, this also highlights the contradiction of an assumed ‘correct’ or
‘right’ answer. Brown (1970) explains:
Somewhat paradoxically a preoccupation with hierarchies of aims is frequently a
preconception of “ultimates”, so that the remote objective is not what it sometimes
purports to be in an individual’s thought; it is the beginning rather than the end of a
process. The ordering of aims carries with it a suggestion of an irreversibility of
objectives that is not consistent with experience, and a suggestion of a rigidity that
is imposed to justify a kind of super-end extrinsic to the process. (p. 179)
68 Educators with preconceived ends to their dialogic teaching raise the concern that there are imposed ends, which in turn questions the truly reflexive and open nature of critical thought and whether these types of dialogues are in fact representative of a critical literacy mindset and pedagogy. This is the ongoing dilemma of the means-to-an-end approach within education. Granted, in many ways it is inevitable that some external ends are ultimately influenced by educators, whether as skills, dispositions, attitudes, or understandings.
Difficult Dialogues
Controversial or uncomfortable questions and dialogues are not merely conflicting because they are political in nature, but because these conflictual dialogues highlight complexities about the role of the educator and the position they take on issues and subjects
(Fine, 1993; Hess & Avery, 2008; Simon, 2001). In my experience, educators often avoid exploring conflictual issues that may draw out negative reactions or conflicting opinions, but Kohl (1995) asserts that “there is no way to avoid having your children exposed to many objectionable or problematic aspects of our culture. …children have to develop critical attitudes towards them. These attitudes will not develop through avoidance” (p. 15).
Callan (2011) concurs that “social interaction is always fraught with the risk of humiliation or embarrassment. Our dignity is permanently at risk and, so far as we forget about the risk, it is only because we have come to trust that others will in fact treat us with civility” (p.
10). As Kumashiro (2009) states, ideas and stances can often be at odds with challenging ideas, noting that “If students are not experiencing crisis, they are likely not learning things that challenge the knowledge they have already learned that supports the status quo” (p.
32). Trust is therefore an important aspect of classroom learning and teaching.
69 In this respect, I recall a personal experience from my childhood when I voiced an opposing opinion about a contentious issue and was scolded by the teacher in front of my peers because it opposed her personal view. In response, I immediately repositioned my stance to align with my teacher’s because I assumed that this was the ‘correct’ and appropriate manner of engaging in classroom conversations. This is in part because teachers are in positions of power and appealing to authority upholds the fallacy that teachers have the “highest intellectual authority by virtue of their advanced education and experience” (Hemmings, 2000, p. 70). This can result in students simply adhering to institutional beliefs that devalue their own stances and opinions (Apol, 1998). Even the act of hushing a student may encourage a student to renounce their own moral stance to avoid getting reproached (Thornberg, 2006).
This highlights the authoritative nature of a teacher’s stance and approach and whether or not that stance should be shared with students. There is an ongoing debate questioning whether or not teachers should remain neutral (Warnock, 1975), or can remain neutral given the partisan nature of education (Norman, 1975). In particular, Hess (2009) analyzed how teachers decide to approach teaching controversial political issues and identified four distinct approaches:
1) Denial
It is not a controversial political issue: “Some people may say it is controversial, but
I think they are wrong. There is a right answer to this question. So I will teach as if
it were not controversial to ensure that students develop that answer.”
70 2) Privilege
Teach toward a particular perspective on the controversial political issue: “It is
controversial, but I think there is a clearly right answer and will try to get my
students to adopt that position.”
3) Avoidance
Avoid the controversial political issue: “The issue is controversial, but my personal
views are so strong that I do not think I can teach it fairly, or I do not want to do
so.”
4) Balance
Teach the matter as a genuine controversial political issue: “The issue is
controversial and I will aim toward balance and try to ensure that various positions
get a best case, fair hearing” (p. 127).
Moreover, students may simply accept the validity of a teacher’s stated position due to their authoritative role within the classroom, not necessarily because it was presented in a convincing manner through evidence or logic.
This is a similar concern to what Freire (1970) conceptualized as banking within the field of critical literacy, where student learning is an uncritical process of receiving
‘deposits’ of information. In this approach, “the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits” (Freire, 1970, p. 58). This creates a passive learning environment that upholds a disproportionate relationship between the teacher who maintains all the authority and the students. Additionally, without
71 appealing to logic and reasoning first and foremost, students may instead be obedient to authority. I recall in particular a conflictual debate that my English language arts class took up regarding the issue of the gun industry’s influence on the availability of firearms in the
United States. Students read a series of articles (“Bearing Arms”, 2013) as part of a dystopian project tied to the novel Brave New World. One student proposed a notion: guns don’t kill people, people kill people. Many students fiercely objected to this idea and became argumentative, rude, and frustrated with the student. While the class agreed that there was significant relevance in exploring this issue, they also agreed that these kinds of questions can be particularly challenging. They pointed out that they seldom talked about how to ‘talk’ in high school.
Conflictual Issues and Topics
There are many positions on how and why teachers should discuss controversial issues in the classroom (Hess, 2004), and discussing controversial or conflictual issues in the classroom is an important area of research (Carrington & Troyna, 1988; Hess, 2004;
Thomas, 2000). Even attempting to discern what is ‘controversial’ is complicated (Barrow,
2005; Hand, 2008). Conflictual topics generally refer to different or opposing stances on political, social, or cultural issues (Schirch & Campt, 2007) and can be especially challenging to teach (Claire & Holden, 2007; Dewhurst, 1992) since it is difficult to gauge intellectual liberties (Callan, 2011). In particular, Hess (2009) defines as sub-category or controversial issues as controversial political issues which are “questions of public policy that spark significant disagreement” (p. 37). Hess suggests that these issues require and deserve public deliberation and input and “are open questions, meaning there are multiple and often strikingly different answers that are legitimate–even though people frequently
72 have strongly held and well-reasoned opinions about which answers they prefer” (p. 38).
These kinds of deliberations can be beneficial because they can provide auspicious opportunities for learning as they encourage a sort of empathy beyond theoretical considerations and are “intertwined with people’s identities, affiliations and life experiences” (Hand & Levinson, 2011, p. 616).
Questions about the nature of conflictual topics in the classroom are increasingly prevalent in mainstream discussions on education. In the article “The Coddling of the
American Mind” (2015) in The Atlantic, authors Lukianoff and Haidt discuss students’ increasing need to be protected from words and ideas that cause them discomfort, citing the increasingly common usage of terms such as microaggression and trigger warning. The concern this raises is that attempts to curtail certain words and ideas undermines skills that are a part of living in a pluralistic society, namely intellectual resilience and willing exposure to opposing views and uncomfortable discussions. This is furthered by Mantle-
Bromley and Foster (2005), who ask:
Will tomorrow's citizens–the nation's decision-makers be able to sift and sort
through masses of new information and accumulated knowledge, or will it
overwhelm them? Will they communicate clearly and respectfully with those who
are different from them? Will they use skills of negotiation and compromise
ethically and toward the greater good of society? (p. 70)
McAvoy and Hess (2013) additionally studied the ways high school students discuss controversial issues and suggest that educators approach their teaching with an ethical mindset and to “carefully monitor their own behavior so that they are not interfering with the deliberative potential in the classroom by adopting the divisive practices of
73 polarized politics” (p. 36). In The Political Classroom: Evidence and Ethics in Democratic
Education (2015) Hess and McAvoy’s conducted a longitudinal study of 1001 students and
35 teachers in 21 high schools across three states. They found that students who participated in dialogues around controversial issues were, amongst other findings, more willing to listen to others with whom they disagreed than students in more traditional lecture-based classes.
There is ongoing research that highlights the importance of specifically teaching for dialogue. A common purpose is to engage students in an experience that leads towards understanding (Schwab, 1978). On the contrary, traditional classroom discussions are often simply a sequence of teacher initiation, student response, and teacher evaluation, commonly referred to as IRE (Cazden, 1988). The IRE model tends to support a classroom environment that can be less conflict ridden because teachers control the path of classroom discussion and can shift the dialogue away from overly-conflictual or problematic topics.
There are advantages of this approach. Firstly, teachers maintain student control and better time management. The IRE structure ensures that the teacher ultimately controls of the pace and focus of the conversation, and while beneficial in these respects, this model may create an environment where teachers “pay little attention to students’ real concerns, and interests may unconsciously hamper the students’ desires to participate and interact with their peers. As a result, students’ questions can be foiled, their voices silenced, and their thinking and learning restricted” (Dong, 2008, p. 232). This kind of passivity may be sought by teachers in situations where they already feel the threat of losing control over a group of students. This reality of classroom teaching helps to explain why IRE becomes the
“default option” (Cazden, 2001, p. 31).
74 This is not to suggest that the IRE does not having important benefits including gauging student’s understanding and determining areas of learning that may need increased focus. This can be an effective strategy at the beginning of the class to quickly assess the students’ understanding from the previous session, thus enabling a quick scaffolding process. However, if used too often, it does not offer a particularly collaborative approach to learning. Parker and Hess (2001) state that a “discussion widens the scope of any individual's understanding of a text by building into that understanding the interpretations and life experiences of others” (p. 275). They additionally distinguish between the teaching with discussion and teaching for discussion:
Teaching with discussion is to use discussion as an instructional strategy to help
students more richly understand the text at hand or to make a decision about the
issue at hand. Teaching for discussion has discussion itself as the subject matter –
its worth, purposes, types, and procedures – in which case discussion is not an
instructional strategy but a curricular outcome, for students are expected to achieve
discussion knowledge and ability themselves. (p. 274)
Considering Parker and Hess’ (2001) position, an important ethical consideration for teachers is to determine their fundamental purpose of eliciting discussion in the classroom in the first place. In particular, teachers may believe that they are leading their students in engaged discussions when they are in fact simply leading recitations (Alvermann et al.
1990). Alvermann et al. (1990) made a very important observation about classroom discussions. In their study of 24 middle school teachers, the teachers defined classroom discussions as a) beneficial for teachers to act as moderators and students as active participants, b) opportunities to share facts, ideas and opinions relative to learning
75 materials, and c) beneficial for the understanding that they may be no singular answer or resolution in a discussion. The teachers’ definitions for discussion and what actually transpired in the classroom differed. Alvermann et al. (1990) found that teachers only allowed for very brief opportunities for students to control discussions “because they cannot envision how discussions can be open, yet manageable” (p. 320) and that, “Control is not an option that is easily relinquished, in spite of teacher’s perceptions of the value of open forums as demonstrated in their definitions of discussion” (p. 320). In this study, they concluded that teachers are either “not cognizant of the extent to which their enacted discussions deviate from their definitions, or that they view such intellectualized definitions as being incompatible with the complex realities of classroom life” (p. 320). I suggest that an important ethical consideration when implementing critical literacy dialogues is the establishment of a clearly defined rationale for its use to ensure the value of the process is realized.
Parker (2006) identifies three foundations of classroom discussion: facilitation, participation, and purpose. In particular, purpose is identified as central to the process as it denotes the substance of the discussion process (Dillon in Parker, 2006). In a study of middle school students, Alvermann et al. (1990) found that discussions range between lectures, recitations, and open forum styles. In particular:
the teacher’s purpose for a lesson influences the type of discussion that emerges.
When the primary purpose of a lesson is to review the content of a reading
assignment in preparation for a quiz or a test, the discussion is usually a recitation-
type discussion. When the purpose is to define terms or label parts or fill in missing
information, the discussion is usually either a recitation or a lecture/recitation.
76 When the purpose is to facilitate comprehension, the discussion is more likely to be
an open forum. (p. 319)
This highlights how teachers use discussion relative to the purpose of the teaching and learning. Hence there are also opportunities when teachers hope to move beyond recitation and comprehension such as engaging in constructive controversy.
Constructive Controversy
Controversial issues can be defined as issues where no societal consensus exists and where proponents and opponents exist (Johnson & Johnson, 2007). As such, these issues can provoke strong objections from others. They recommend a model of constructive controversy where “one person’s ideas, information, conclusions, theories, and opinions are incompatible with those of another” with the intention of seeking agreement through
Aristotle’s deliberate discourse model. This involves discussing advantages and disadvantages to seek a synthesis towards a solution. This model upholds that the “conflict among ideas, theories, or conclusions leads to uncertainty, which leads to epistemic curiosity, which, in turn, leads to reconceptualized and refined conclusions” (Johnson &
Johnson, 2009, p. 41). They describe this process of constructive controversy:
1. When individuals are presented with a problem or decision, they form an initial
conclusion based on categorizing and organizing their current (but usually limited)
information, experience, and perspectives. They tend to have a high degree of
confidence in their initial conclusion (they freeze the epistemic process).
2. When individuals present their initial conclusion and its rationale to others, they
tend to engage in cognitive rehearsal and higher-level reasoning strategies, thereby
deepening their understanding of the problem or decision.
77 3. When individuals are confronted with different conclusions based on other
people’s information, experiences, and perspectives, they tend to become uncertain
as to the correctness of their own conclusion, and a state of conceptual conflict or
disequilibrium is aroused. They unfreeze their epistemic process.
4. Uncertainty, conceptual conflict, or disequilibrium tends to motivate epistemic
curiosity. The result is an active search for (a) more information and new
experiences (increased specific content) and (b) a more adequate cognitive
perspective and reasoning process (increased validity) in the hope of resolving the
uncertainty.
5. By adapting their cognitive perspectives and reasoning through understanding
and accommodating the perspectives and reasoning of others, individuals tend to
derive a new, reconceptualized, and reorganized conclusion. Novel solutions and
decisions that, on balance, are qualitatively better tend to be detected. (Johnson &
Johnson, 2009, p. 41)
Throughout this process, a key characteristic is epistemic curiosity. This is certainly a fundamental goal of engaging students and a precursor to ongoing interest and the desire to seek new understandings. As such, the goal is to “learn that the purpose of advocacy and criticism is not to win but rather to clarify the strengths and weaknesses of various courses of action, so that a joint agreement may be reached regarding what represents the best reasoned judgment” (Johnson & Johnson, 2009, p. 48). However, they also warn that these controversial discussions may not be beneficial, particularly if participants avoid the
78 conflict, simply comply with others, avoid explaining their perspectives, or impose their views on others without explanation (Johnson & Johnson, 2009).
The process of engaging in controversial discussions requires a careful and reflexive approach that ensures students are aware of their individual responsibilities throughout the conflictual dialogue process. This brings up a few pragmatic concerns:
What if a student does not want to participate? How do teachers ensure that the classroom space feels safe enough for students to participate in this process? What about students who struggle to articulate and rationalize their reasons for feeling a particular way on a particular topic? While solutions to these scenarios can be developed, they do raise questions about a teacher’s ability to continually gauge and monitor these necessary conditions. When teachers avoid these instructional opportunities, it potentially “indicates that the apprehension many educators feel is more powerful than their desire for the potential positive outcomes of conflict. Educators’ apprehension may be increased by the lack of operational procedures to guide their use of intellectual conflict” (Johnson &
Johnson, 2009, p. 48). Conversely, they highlight many benefits of intellectual conflict including the ability to:
1. Focus student attention on the material to be learned and on the instructional
tasks.
2. Energize students to complete instructional tasks, seek out new information, and
study harder and longer.
3. Motivate students to learn and to continue learning about the subject after the
course has ended.
79 4. Produce higher levels of cognitive reasoning in completing the instructional
tasks.
5. Increase accuracy and frequency of perspective taking.
6. Produce higher levels of achievement and retention of the material being studied.
7. Produce higher levels of creativity and divergent thinking.
8. Build more positive relationships among students.
9. Increase students’ self-esteem. (Johnson & Johnson, 2009, p. 37)
Constructive conflict can be taught and is essential to democracy (Bickmore & Parker,
2014) but it can be a difficult and fearful endeavour for teachers (Donnelly & Hughes,
2006). This points to the need for professional development training and supports for teachers incorporating conflictual dialogues in the classroom.
Bickmore’s (2005) study of English Language Arts, Health, and Social Studies curricula in grades 1 to 10 within three Canadian provinces, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, and
Ontario, highlights a lack of specificity around representations of conflict related content.
While the research highlights a convergence of themes across research areas, including peace education, critical literacy, critical pedagogy, and moral education, Bickmore (2005) states:
A curriculum that does not trouble students’ assumptions about the status quo and
their place in it is thereby teaching (dominant) values, just as certainly as would be
a more self-consciously ‘political’ curriculum. Implicit denial of social conflict
foundations shuts down potential spaces for conscientization and critique. Given
that most citizens’ (and teachers’) international and explicit political knowledge is
minimal, a lack of specific content examples in the curriculum expectations
80 virtually guarantees that these specific ‘conflict formations’ will usually not be
addressed. (p. 177)
Bickmore raises an important question: “What is the proper balance among ‘teaching’ values (presentation of ‘truths’ by nation state representatives), developing diverse citizens’ capacities to disagree and to decide for themselves, and making young people aware of the ways they are constituted by (and co-create) the taken-for-granted discourses surrounding them in their communities and schools?” (2005, p. 163). Bickmore’s question highlights the complexity of politicized discussions in the classroom, a complexity that is rarely highlighted in the majority of critical literacy and social justice related teaching curricula.
Constructive controversy certainly has important democratic appeal and fundamental benefits in regard to learning, communication, and the capacity for critical thinking and action. Conflictual dialogues are not without complexities, particularly for those who choose not to speak.
Silence
In Ellsworth’s seminal article entitled Why Doesn’t This Feel Empowering (1989), they warn that “the assumption present in the literature that silence in front of a teacher or professor indicates “lost voice,” “voicelessness,” or lack of social identity from which to act as a social agent betrays deep and unacceptable gender, race, and class biases” (p. 312–
313). I concur with Ellsworth (1989) who notes:
As long as the literature on critical pedagogy fails to come to grips with issues of
trust, risk, and the operations of fear and desire around such issues of identity and
politics in the classroom, their rationalistic tools will continue to fail to loosen deep-
81 seated, self-interested investments in unjust relations of, for example, gender,
ethnicity, and sexual orientation. (pp. 313–314)
Ellsworth’s attention to the intricacies of critical pedagogy beyond its theoretical confines is important: concerns about trust and risk are at the heart of ethical teaching and require ongoing, careful attention. It is natural for individuals to avoid risk especially if it is emotionally impactful; White (2011) argues that in some cases, “minority students choose not to participate in an effort to maintain their sense of personal and cultural identity and/or because they lack a full understanding of the kinds of academic discourse employed in classroom discussions” (p. 250). This is an important consideration in the context of the
Manitoba ELA classroom. In the Winnipeg School Division alone, 23.9% of students are identified as English as Additional Language (EAL) learners (Winnipeg School Division
School Demographics Report 2018/2019). In an examination of minority students’ participation within classroom discussions, White (2011) explains the complexities that arise when teachers expect students to participate:
Demands for universal class participation—sans the development of a safe
classroom culture, specific and universally understood rules for such discussion,
and assurances that all students (especially minority students) understand the unique
discursive styles used in such discussions—in many cases defeats the very purposes
of class discussion: participatory and democratic education. It can also further
alienate the very students most in danger of feeling excluded from mainstream
classes. (p. 261)
White (2011) further stresses that, “Having the opportunity to voice one’s ideas in class is empowering; being forced to do so, however, can be oppressive” (p. 261) and “that
82 silence represents far more than a student’s lack of interest, knowledge, or desire to participate” (p. 262). In When to shut students up: Civility, silencing, and free speech,
Callan (2011) explains, “If intellectual candor is among the paramount democratic virtues, we should look for ways to give it adequate scope in educational institutions without humiliating those most vulnerable to humiliation and least well served already by the current distribution of educational opportunity” (p. 13). His point highlights a significant issue when discussing the role of the teacher, or student, or silencing a student for something that they say deemed to be offensive. Callan (2011) explains:
If one had to choose between the teacher who will silence artfully and the one who
will engage patronizingly or ignorantly, then silencing may well be the lesser evil.
But a choice of pedagogical strategies constrained by the ability of a teacher to
engage well with students who derogate some of their peers begs the question of
what would be best for the teacher capable both of silencing or engaging in a
skillful, or at least a passably competent manner. (p. 14)
Callan’s position highlights that it is not a question of whether or not a teacher will ever silence a student, but how. This is an imperative consideration as students may make comments that are regarded uncivil or potentially deemed hateful. This is therefore the immense ethical responsibility that a teacher holds; their attempt to allow students ongoing independence and free thought along with care and thoughtfulness of how they express their ideas. Callan (2011) explains that this is what constitutes a good teacher:
A good teacher who publicly engages the student in the hard case as an interlocutor
might lead discussion in any number of different directions. But a few
considerations will surely be prominent: here is an opportunity to teach vividly
83 about the human propensity to concoct invidious stereotypes; about how questions
or observations that seem stupid to us might tell us more about ourselves than the
quality of the question or the observation; about the multiple meanings of
‘affirmative action’ and what might reasonably be said in its favor, as well as
against it. That the student’s derogation of her peers was itself uncivil is also
something to be taught here, though if it is really to be taught, rather than merely
declared, it will require some verbal precision and a cool temper. (p. 14)
Callan (2011) recognizes a multitude of skills that are involved in the process, and one that
I consider particularly important: “how questions or observations that seem stupid to us might tell us more about ourselves than the quality of the question or the observation” (p.
14). By this very nature, Callan is suggesting a more organic discourse that is unpolished and not necessarily measured by a particular refined level of questioning; it is this kind of authenticity that may prove to be essential in learning and understanding. Again, this highlights a sort of balance that teachers must attempt to find between students’ capacity for candor and a socially acceptable framework within which they can dialogue.
Conclusion
The significance of dialogue in education remains central to teaching and learning.
The reflective process elicits a myriad of English language arts skills and capacities that support social and democratic aims and are rooted in a history of orality. Of note were key theorists Bakhtin, de Saussure, and Vygotsky who collectively recognized that individual consciousness is based on otherness, and that the reflexive process elicits unique opportunities to expand understanding and individual character traits including self- confidence and open-mindedness. Key to this process is a level of authenticity that upholds
84 each individual’s vantage point. This is most clearly demonstrated through the examination of moral values such as honesty, care, respect, and fairness because these values are central to dialogue when examined relative to topics that are value-laden. Examining moral values often leads to the acknowledgement of moral pluralism which additionally highlights that moral goods conflict (Strike, 1999). These conflicts are pronounced in controversial and conflictual topics that, while justifiably difficult, are also capable of encouraging understanding and empathy, epistemic curiosity, reflexivity, and the capacity to navigate issues ethically for the greater good of society (Mantle-Bromley & Foster, 2005).
Dialogic outcomes are relative to teaching approaches and methods and while many educators may believe their classrooms are dialogically rich spaces, that may not be the case. Teachers must consider factors including the purpose of the dialogues (Parker &
Hess, 2001), how they control and manage them (Alvermann et al., 1990), and if students are being silenced. Thus for all the inherent values of dialogic learning, they are relative to teachers’ own reflexivity on their roles in the classroom.
Additionally, the value-laden nature of dialogic learning is further complicated by critical literacy outcomes that should be grounded in truth and authenticity in order to explore issues of power and injustice. If classroom dialogic learning is not authentic and at times conflictual by its very nature, then it may be nothing more than the top-down banking method that critical pedagogues have fought hard to dismantle. Conflictual issues and topics can be complex to navigate, and this research highlights the need for critical literacy practitioners to have adequate opportunities to understand the moral and ethical implications of their dialogically constructed teaching practices. This also highlights important considerations that critical literacy practitioners must address when considering
85 the purpose and delivery of critical literacy instruction and the need to recognize the moral and ethical dimensions of teaching, particularly as dialogically-focused critical literacy pedagogues.
86 Chapter V – The Moral and Ethical Dimensions of Teaching and Schooling
At its foundation teaching is a moral profession (Campbell, 2008; Jackson,
Boostrom, Hansen, 1993) and the relationship between teacher and student is fundamentally moral in nature (Tom, 1984). As Fenstermacher and Richardson (2004) assert, the presence of morality in teaching is not in dispute, but rather “what kind of moral influence teachers ought to have and how that influence should be exerted” (p. 111). The concept of teaching morally is best described as the ability “to teach in a manner that accords with notions of what is good or right” (Fenstermacher, Osguthorpe, & Sanger,
2009, p. 8). The ability to discern notions of what is good and right is what Campbell
(2018) describes as a teacher’s ethical knowledge, or the “capacity to develop an astute awareness of how his or her intentions and actions both uphold and model ethical principles” (Campbell, 2018, p. 99). Teaching requires careful consideration of various instructional interactions, approaches, and methodologies. Here, Campbell’s (2018) distinction between intention and action is noteworthy because even with ‘good’ intentions, a teacher’s actions could still fall short of being ethical. Campbell (2018) explains that ethical knowledge extends into many aspects of a teacher’s role as a professional:
The choices teachers make and the judgements they exercise over matters of
curriculum taught, pedagogical styles used, methods of assessment and evaluation
implemented, disciplinary approaches adopted, and the relational dynamics of
working with children as well as parents, colleagues, school administrators, and
others, all are matters of ethical significance. They are not simply the technical
aspects of practice that one may apply ethics to; they are at their core ethical aspects
of practice. (p. 98)
87 Thus a teacher’s conduct is bound by many ethical principles that are foundational to a teacher’s practice. Ultimately, ethical teaching is something that “crosses all contexts and holds as its equal standard for them principles that bind us together in our common humanity—the need to treat and be treated by others fairly, responsibly, compassionately, and honestly” (Campbell, 2013, p. 220). The deeply interactive nature of learning means that beyond the transfer of knowledge, a teacher’s own moral character is also broadcast. In this instance, character is defined as “the possession and active manifestation of those character traits called virtues” (Noddings, 2002, p. 3). Consequently, ethical knowledge is complex because it is actualized across a multitude of teacher practices. This also highlights the volume and frequency in which a teacher’s ethical awareness comes into play in daily interactions and the corresponding risk a teacher’s lack of awareness or ethical knowledge could present. Teachers who do not carefully consider their actions and choices may fail to recognize how their teaching and modeling could negatively impact their students. Moreover, their moral character is always present because it is impossible to separate and insulate their individual moral identity and beliefs from their professional role.
Conversely, teachers may recognize and identify their roles as being fundamentally moral in nature, but that may not suffice: “When teachers feel that they are responsible for moral education but do not have an answer to questions concerning the nature, desirability and implementation of moral education, it can lead to feelings of incompetence, insecurity and stress—which can together be labelled as ‘moral embarrassment’” (Sanderse, 2012, p.
17). The objective of this chapter is to develop a better understanding of the moral and ethical dimensions of teaching and learning relative to ELA instructors with a focus on the
88 advent of curricular objectives aimed at examining moral and ethical issues in the classroom.
The moral dimensions of education encompass more than just the teaching of morality, but being a moral teacher (Sanderse, 2012). Osguthorpe (2008) emphasizes that there is a societal expectation that teachers are of ‘good’ moral character in addition to being knowledgeable in their subject areas and are essentially “of virtuous disposition because they inescapably influence the moral development of the children in their charge”
(Osguthorpe, 2008, p. 288). Research into the moral and ethical dimensions of teaching and learning focus on ethical awareness as well as virtues such as “fairness, compassion, care, honesty, courage, constancy, diligence, integrity, personal responsibility, and practical wisdom that characterize the work of professional practitioners in their accountable position of public service and duty” (Campbell, 2013, p. 216). The virtue ethical approach to teaching and learning in moral education correlates to teachers’ manner because their character is exposed through their daily interactions, choices, and reactions (Fallona, 2000).
The connection between moral education and the ethical dimensions of teaching are inextricably connected.
Empirical Foundations
Historically, the moral nature of teaching and schooling was often explored in relation to moral education curricula as opposed the teacher’s individual ethical position and practice (Campbell, 2008). Rather, the “ethical professional practices of teachers were left implicit rather than being the focus of theoretical or empirical inquiry” (Campbell,
2008, p. 360). Today, study of the moral dimensions and ethical nature of teaching are more closely connected, a development influenced, in part, by the numerous empirical
89 studies that placed a greater focus on the exploration of the moral complexities of teaching
(Campbell, 2008). As a result, research into the moral and ethical dimensions of teaching and learning has produced a number of pivotal studies including those reported in The
Moral Dimensions of Teaching (Goodlad, Soder, & Sirotnik, 1990), The Moral Life of
Schools (Jackson, Boostrom, & Hansen, 1993), and “The Manner in Teaching Project”
(Richardson & Fenstermacher, 2001).
In 1990, Goodlad, Soder, and Sirotnik published a foundational book entitled The
Moral Dimensions of Teaching, which is prefaced by an important observation:
Schools and the people in them are caught up in a host of contradictions and the
inevitable conflicts between individual and group interests and well-being. One
would hope that teachers and administrators are well prepared to deal with these
contradictions and conflicts in steadfastly fulfilling their educational mission
Unfortunately, they are not. (p. xii)
The education of children is a process shared by teachers and parents and is therefore innately complex due to the multitude of directives and expectations, many operating at cross-purposes. The Moral Dimensions of Teaching was purposefully designed to provide educators with opportunities to consider the historical and political context of teaching as a moral practice, discussions around ethics and teaching, and the critical examinations of the prominent theorists within the field of the time. In particular, The Moral Dimensions of
Teaching offered the basis for theoretical foundations supporting ongoing research into moral education within schools (Campbell, 2008).
Jackson, Boostrom, and Hansen’s The Moral Life of Schools (1993) is a seminal and frequently-cited empirical study published in 1990s that explored the moral dimensions
90 of schools and classrooms through eight case studies and detailed the moral complexities and moral ambiguities that can surface, in particular, “the events and features of moral consequences” (p. xii). Jackson, Boostrom, and Hansen examined the complex moral nature of teaching and created a guide of what they observed to be categories of moral influence within classroom practice. They identified eight types of moral teaching and learning: moral instruction as a formal part of the curriculum; moral instruction within the regular curriculum; rituals and ceremonies; visual displays with moral content; spontaneous interjections of moral commentary into on-going activity; classroom rules and regulations; the morality of the curricular substructure; and expressive morality within the classroom.
Of particular note was the study’s discovery that the category of ‘moral instruction within the regular curriculum’ was most prominent within English language arts. When students were “asked to place themselves in the position of the character or type of character being discussed and to imagine how they might feel or react under similar circumstances”
(Jackson, Boostrom, & Hansen, 1993, p. 5), it often led to “differences of opinion and sometimes sharp disagreements” (Jackson, Boostrom, & Hansen, 1993, p. 5), a similar result of many character-analysis questions that arise in my own English language arts classes.
Another important work is “The Manner in Teaching Project” (Fenstermacher, 2001
Richardson & Fenstermacher, 2000, 2001). They define manner as the “action consistent with a set of relatively stable dispositions or traits of character” (Fenstermacher &
Richardson, 2004, p. 112). In fact, everything a teacher does is their manner of teaching, from the way they respond to questions to the types of assignments they create
(Fenstermacher, 2001). This study was grounded in the philosophy that individuals acquire
91 virtue by being around other virtuous individuals (Fenstermacher & Richardson, 2004), a position that “invoke[s] the language of virtue ethics, in part reminiscent of an Aristotelian tradition” (Campbell, 2008, p. 359). Interestingly, Fenstermacher and Richardson avoided referencing their work as an examination of moral education, instead they “sought a term that denoted as precisely as possible what we wanted to understand, a term that did not carry all the ideological and normative connotations of the words ‘moral education’ and
‘character education’” (Fenstermacher & Richardson, 2004, p. 112). To better understand the contemporary notions of what we characterize as moral and ethical, it is necessary to explore the history of character education and moral education.
Character Education
There is no consensus definition of character education and the term originates from the Greek word charassein, meaning “to engrave”, such as on a wax tablet (Ryan,
2010). Thus this metaphor of something being engraved or written upon is the conceptualization of character as an individual’s distinctive mark or etching (Ryan, 2010).
Character education is the deliberate goal of cultivating virtues such as “wisdom, justice, fortitude, self-control, love, a positive attitude, hard work, integrity, gratitude, and humility” (Lickona, 2004, p. xxv). Campbell (2008) states that “Of all the branches of moral education, the one that is the most popular and supported, as well as the most contentious and criticized, the most pervasive in schools and the most widely documented in the literature since 1990 is “character education” (p. 371).
In early America, Puritans in the Massachusetts Bay Colony passed the Old
Deluder Satan Act (1647), which established elementary and secondary schools that emphasized the study and interpretation of the Bible. The purpose was to educate children
92 and equip them with the skills and strength of character necessary to resist Satan. As such, a child’s moral education became synonymous with education. This was a prominent ideal of the time:
Thomas Jefferson spoke of the need to educate the citizenry of the fledging nation
to the high moral sensibilities required of democracy. If citizens were to take on the
authority that was once the province of the kind and ministers, they needed moral
education. They needed new ethical dispositions and habits to stand in judgement of
fellow citizens and to pass just laws. (Ryan, 2010, p. 145)
In the 19th century, character education focused on the use of moral texts, such as Mother
Goose Tales, to teach moral aphorisms in a creative and engaging manner to young children. The explicit lessons of these texts left little room for critical examination because their purpose was to impart a strict moral message. These kinds of books are still prevalent in schools today, particularly at the elementary level. But beyond moral aphorisms, today’s texts also explore a wider range of topics including resilience, individualism, empowerment, anger management, and mindfulness with the significant distinction that they no longer expressly incorporate Christian messages but the general concept of good character.
This shift away from character education began after World War II in response to a growing public desire to secularize public education which, in turn, led to a movement away from Christian underpinnings (Ryan, 2010). In the 1960s and 1970s, a period of significant social activism and transformation emerged including dissonance over the war in Vietnam, the Woman’s Rights Movement and the Civil Rights Movement, the increased prevalence of oral contraceptives, and use of recreational drugs, which influenced a shift in
93 public morality (Ryan, 2010). For educators, this resulted in a significant shift in values as a the “moral consensus had evaporated, leaving many in doubt about whose values should be taught” (Ryan, 2010, p. 146) and led to an increased plurality of individual beliefs and values, rights, freedoms, and individual autonomy. In schools, there was an increased concern over the power of educators to indoctrinate and led to a shift towards more skills- based learning to better prepare students for the work world.
Moral education can be described as “whatever schools do to influence how students think, feel, and act regarding issues of right and wrong” (ASCD, p. 4). This broad description reveals the complexity of understanding what constitutes moral education.
Berkowitz (2012) explains, “I have found the language of moral education to be a semantic mine field…There is no moral GPS to help with such semantic navigation. I have lectured, written, etc. under quite a set of terms. The terminology varies geographically and historically. And there are many overlapping terms used” (Berkowitz in Kristjánsson, 2017, p. 342). Moreover, Aspin (1999) suggests that there needs to be ongoing clarity about the ways many of these terms are used, particularly because “values terms and standards that people so frequently and widely employ in discussion and decision-making upon matters that have the potential to affect so many members of the community for good or ill” (p. 40).
Historically, a number of significant movements and publications have been associated with moral education.
Walker and Thoma (2017) highlight a significant differentiation between moral education and character education:
Traditionally, moral education is concerned with the interpretation and strategies
one uses to understand moral phenomenon and defines the moral person as a
94 predominantly thinking entity, whereas character education emphasizes the
development of habits and dispositions as a precondition for the moral person. (p. 1)
What is particularly interesting about character education is that while the subject remains at a distance from critical literacy research, some of its purposes align. One of character education’s leading advocates and scholars, Thomas Lickona (1999), suggests that “to develop character in its cognitive, emotional, and behavior dimensions, schools need a comprehensive approach” (p. 80). His development of a list of particular classroom strategies for individual teachers highlights many important elements that are also commonly upheld by critical literacy pedagogy:
1. Act as caregiver, model, and mentor: Treat students with love and respect,
setting a good example, supporting prosocial behavior, and correcting hurtful
actions through one-on-one guidance and whole-class discussion.
2. Create a moral community: Help students know each other as persons, respect
and care about each other, and feel valued membership in, and responsibility to, the
group.
3. Practice moral discipline: Use the creation and enforcement of rules as
opportunities to foster moral reasoning, voluntary compliance with rules, and a
generalized respect for others.
4. Create a democratic classroom environment: Involve students in collaborative
decision making and shared responsibility for making the classroom a good place to
be and learn.
95 5. Teach character through the curriculum: Use the ethically rich content of
academic subjects (such as literature, history, and science) as a vehicle for studying
the virtues; ensure that the sex, drugs, and alcohol education programs promote
self-control and other high character standards taught elsewhere in the curriculum.
6. Use cooperative learning: Through collaborative work, develop students'
appreciation of others, perspective-taking, and ability to work toward common
goals.
7. Develop the “conscience of craft”: Foster students’ valuing of learning, capacity
for working hard, commitment to excellence, and public sense of work as affecting
the lives of others.
8. Encourage moral reflection: Foster moral thinking and thoughtful decision-
making through reading, research, essay writing, journaling, discussion, and debate.
9. Teach conflict resolution: Help students acquire the moral skills of solving
conflicts fairly and without force. (Lickona, 1999, pp. 80–81)
Considering Lickona’s list of the individual teacher’s approaches to character building, many of these parallel approaches within critical literacy. For instance, the caregiver model clearly aligns with Paulo Freire’s view that love and respect are central to learning and relationships. Additionally, prosocial behaviour is espoused through the whole-class discussion model that is central to its activist-oriented ends because there is a desire to support the cultural capital of students. In doing so, the hope is that students uphold their own backgrounds, interests, and values as entry points in order to shape learning
96 opportunities. Critical literacy also values community and recognizes our membership to many communities simultaneously, even those in conflict. Thus the requisite to belong to a community and have a valued membership is essential within critical literacy because it is through this sense of peer sharing that issues of oppression and power imbalances are often actualized and shared. The need for respect is also central to critical literacy learning and recognizes that power imbalances are inherent to the human experience but, equally, do not absolve us of personal responsibility, particularly when seeking change for the most oppressed and powerless of society.
Critical literacy additionally upholds the notions of democracy, shared responsibility, the collective and cooperative nature of learning with and from one another, and the impact of conscience to better improve our own lives and the lives of others.
Finally, reflexivity is central to critical literacy as is the ability to discuss and solve conflicts to influence and create meaningful change.
One element that is not as closely upheld is teaching character through curriculum.
This is interesting because critical literacy advocates the use of “ethically rich content of academic subjects (such as literature, history, and science) as a vehicle for studying”
(Lickona, 1999, p. 80), in this case, social justice, as opposed to “the virtues” (Lickona,
1999, p. 80). Lockwood (1997) defines character education as “any school initiated program, designed in cooperation with other community institutions, to shape directly and systematically the behaviour of young people by influencing explicitly the nonrelativistic values believed directly to bring about that behaviour” (p. 6). Character education would eventually lead to ongoing developments within the movements of positive psychology and virtue ethics.
97 Positive psychology focusses on ways in which we can improve life – most notably mental wellness – and is grounded in the work of Martin Seligman who identifies six traits of human happiness and 24 universal character strengths. By striving for Aristotle’s life of eudaimonia (flourishing) as opposed to hedonia (pleasure), individuals can lead flourishing and meaningful lives. Simultaneously, virtue ethics is a return to Aristotle’s interest in how individuals achieve happiness, with a focus on qualities of character such as self-control and justice (Ryan, 2010). Virtue ethics is a method “to immerse students in an understanding of those virtues which constitute a good life, expose them to the moral exemplars throughout our history and in our literature, and inform them of the pitfalls to attaining and maintaining these virtues” (Ryan, 2010, p. 148). Historically, a number of significant movements and publications have been associated with moral education.
Values clarification was briefly popular in the 1970s and focused on criteria used to determine if a particular belief was essentially a value. Prominent educators including
Raths, Simon, Howe, and Kirschenbaum advocated for values clarification (Helms, 2010) which upheld the notion that our values are personal and are formed by our experiences and feelings. The goal was to help students discern their particular values through an autonomous seven-step evaluative process of ethical decision making. Values clarification did not support a fixed consensus of particular moral values and emphasized that individuals should freely choose since competing systems of values always exist:
The values clarification process is not intended to prescribe “correct values,” but
rather is a cognitive method to provide the process to discover one's own values. It
is important to note that the values clarification approach assumes no right or wrong
answers. (Helms, 2010, p. 919)
98 A central criticism of values clarification was its promotion of uninformed opinions where the “process of coming to hold values rather than the content of the values becomes primary” (Simon, 2001, p. 22). It has also been criticized as “operating under the guise of
“neutrality,” as a usurpation of parental authority, and as devoid of moral content” (Helms,
2010, p. 919). It is suggested that values clarification may still exist “in courses that focus on critical thinking and controversy. It is difficult to quantify the number of teachers and schools that employ values clarification techniques” (Helms, 2010, p. 920).
In Reason and Teaching (1973), Scheffler’s in-depth philosophical examination of what constitutes teaching highlights many important insights into the philosophies of morality in education. He states:
For it can hardly be said that there is a firm agreement among moralists and
educators as to the content and scope of morality. Yet the tradition of moral
philosophy reveals a sense of morality as a comprehensive institution over and
beyond particular moral codes, which seems to me especially consonant with the
democratic ideal, and can, at least in outline, be profitably explored in the context of
schooling (p. 140).
Scheffler’s concern over the span of what is moral and the suggestion that morality as a comprehensive institution supersedes particular moral codes further highlights the need to consider the importance of how morals are individually envisioned and upheld through the process of moral reasoning.
Moral Reasoning
Since the purpose of this study is to amalgamate emergent themes between disparate areas, it is important to acknowledge the work within the field of psychology
99 related to moral development led by the foundational researchers Freud, Piaget, Kohlberg, and Turiel.
In the early 20th century, psychological conceptualizations about the acquisition and development of morality were based upon an internalization of traits and habits that reflected values of society, with psychoanalysis and behaviorism as the most prominent theories of the time (Turiel, 2012). In his book entitled The Culture of Morality: Social
Development, Context, and Conflict, Elliot Turiel (2012) explains, “The less general uses of the notion of character are closely linked to morality through identification of particular traits – such as honesty, compassion, courage, responsibility, and loyalty. Possessing the specific traits, along with associated habits of behavior, is seen to constitute morality” (p.
94). Psychoanalysis, relative to the research of Sigmund Freud, maintains that individuals are in conflict with moral requirements of society because of their individual biological instincts. Accordingly, relationships with others need to be regulated because individuals are by nature instinctively aggressive. Freud’s notion of the superego:
entails incorporation of society’s moral standards and the acquisition of emotional
mechanisms, mainly based on guilt, for the internal control of behavior. Once the
superego is formed, individuals have taken on society’s standards as their own, but
they also internalize, in an unconscious and ongoing way, the conflict between
control and needs for instinctual gratification. (Turiel, 2012, p. 95)
Alternatively, behaviorists argue that biological instincts are not as prominent and through the process of “rewards, punishments, and imitation, children learn to act in ways expected and taught by parents and others – who themselves reflect society’s moral expectations”
(Turiel, 2012, p. 96).
100 The later 20th century would see the crucial work of researchers such as Jean Piaget emerge. Piaget theorized that a young child’s understanding of morality requires a sense of obligation that is developed though a unilateral respect for adults, but that this reverses with older children as their relationships with peers become reciprocal. He further explained that
“justice can only come into being by free consent. Adult authority, even if it acts in conformity with justice, has therefore the effect of weakening what constitutes the essence of justice” (Piaget, 1997, p. 319). According to Piaget (1995) autonomy occurs when the
“subject participates in the elaboration of norms instead of receiving them ready-made as happens in the case of the norms of unilateral respect that lie behind heteronomous morality” (p. 315).
Cognitive stage development research has also been vital to understanding how cognitive capacity increases through the participation in classroom discussions. This is particularly relevant when examining theoretical socio-moral development frameworks such as the Kohlberg’s (1976) stage model of moral reasoning. Cognitive moral development emerged from the work of Lawrence Kohlberg, who was not a proponent of character education but endorsed moral development grounded in moral reasoning.
Grounded in the previous work Piaget (Ryan, 2010), Kohlberg established a philosophy based upon the examination of moral dilemmas. He identified a series of six stages within three distinct levels of moral reasoning. The goal was to reach the highest level of moral reasoning, and he argued that moral thinkers in the lower stages could come to reach and engage habitually in the higher levels of moral reasoning through intellectual moral discourse. While Kohlberg’s dilemmas have been sometimes deemed unfamiliar (Rosen,
101 1980), generic, androcentric, and neglectful of the principles of care (Gilligan, 1977), his ongoing examination of the role of educators is indispensable:
When confronted by a group of parents who asked me “How can we make our
children virtuous?” I had to answer, as Socrates, “You must think I am very
fortunate to know how virtue is acquired. The fact is that far from knowing whether
it can be taught, I have no idea what virtue really is.” (Kohlberg, 1970, p. 57)
Understanding how children attain and understand virtues is complex. Kohlberg’s desire to understand and encourage educators to engage in the philosophical exploration of what precisely constitutes virtue is valuable because virtues impact character, identity, manner and shape an educator’s overall moral character. Kohlberg also raised other important questions such as whether moral character is the same as behavior, and if the values that educators attempt to impart “reflect the status quo and encourage compliance with it” (Joseph & Efron, 2005, p. 526). Hence, this position of fallibility on the part of the educator is an imperative perspective. Rather than portraying the educator as all-knowing,
Kohlberg believed that cognitive conflict can allow for new insights that were previously invisible and that schools were responsible for transmitting some, but not necessarily all, consensual values of society (in Sizer & Sizer, 1970). From a critical literacy lens, Freire
(1960) similarly believed that educators were also fallible learners and had a responsibility to reflect upon the inevitable transmission model of schools and to discern what they were
‘transmitting’.
Kohlberg additionally recognized the distinction between thoughts and actions and concluded that the moral stance individuals express does not always correspond with their actions (Kohlberg in Sizer & Sizer, 1970). That is, an individual’s expressed values may
102 not provide any indication of how they would act in a given situation. This also parallels
Aristotle’s Ethics that distinguished between two virtues: intellectual and moral, where
“intellectual virtue owes its birth and growth to teaching, moral virtue comes about as a result of habit. The moral virtues we get by first exercising them; we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts” (Kohlberg in Sizer
& Sizer, 1970, p. 59). Kohlberg’s dilemma-based curriculum of the 1970’s and 1980’s faced two fundamental issues:
First, many classroom teachers, while taken with the theory, were unable to carry
on the desired discussions of morally complex issues. Second, and particularly
telling, was, again, the failure of the many studies of cognitive moral development
to show a serious change in the moral thinking of students exposed to the method.
(Ryan, 2010, p. 147)
There are various points worth noting at this juncture from a critical literacy standpoint.
Firstly, Kohlberg’s dilemma-based curriculum still holds value. Critical literacy proponents do not attempt to evaluate any particular prescribed levels of reasoning; rather, the process of engaging in an examination of moral dilemmas, of which many critical literacy issues of oppression are often immersed within, is a valuable learning experience. Discussing and debating complex moral issues and dilemmas encourages an exploration of moral and ethical thinking.
These findings have greatly influenced the methods and processes for which teachers establish intervention techniques, as well as how they theorize and shape discussions around moral reasoning in the classroom. This research has examined the continued advantages and disadvantages of discussion formats such as teacher-led
103 discussions and small group discussions (Berkowitz, Gibbs, & Broughton, 1980; Blatt &
Kohlberg, 1975) and the use of moral dilemma resolution approaches. Nucci (2016) explains that Kohlberg’s position was that once children reach the highest stages, “they would not only employ their moral understandings in their own personal conduct but would also employ principles of fairness to guide in the moral improvement or reconstruction of societal practices “ (pp. 294–295). However, it would eventually be understood that
“abstract moral principles cannot be translated into genuine moral positions in the absence of dialog with those for whom those principled are meant to apply” (p. 295). Instead, moral growth “emerges as a differentiated system from its inception alongside at least two other conceptual frameworks pertaining to the conventions of society and the functioning of social systems, along with a personal domain accounting for the requirements of personal choice and privacy” (Nucci, 2016, p. 295). This social element of moral growth is the foundation of another prominent moral reasoning framework, Elliot Turiel’s (1983) domain theory.
Domain theory proposes that children can distinguish moral, social conventional, and personal domains and has “become a dominant theory in the field of social development and is often presented as an alternative to structural-developmental theories of moral development, particularly to Kohlberg’s (1984) and Piaget’s (1932) approaches”
(Lourenço, 2014). Domain theorists advocate that “Moral judgments are justified in terms of justice, others’ rights and welfare; conventional judgments appeal to aspects of custom, authority and social coordination; and justifications in the personal domain concern individual preferences for one’s right to make decisions that affect the self” (Lourenço,
2014, p. 3). In contrast to Piaget and Kohlberg, the “moral, conventional, and personal
104 domains are separate, self- regulating developmental systems that are not developmentally ordered or hierarchical, and are hypothesized to coexist from early age, although concepts in each domain change qualitatively with age” (Lourenço, 2014, p. 2). Nucci and Turiel’s social-cognitive domain theory further emphasizes three domains: the moral, conventional, and personal and is a recommended approach to moral education in contemporary classrooms (Nucci, 2008, 2009; Nucci & Turiel, 2009).
Nucci (2016) clarifies that “abstract moral principles cannot be translated into genuine moral positions in the absence of dialog with those for whom those principles are meant to apply” (p. 295). In particular, Nucci (2016) highlights the growth within social cognitive domain theory related to the role of reasoning within moral education. He notes that the majority of the focus has been on “impacting and assessing the conceptual frameworks that structure the cognitions that guide our moral decisions and actions” but explains that this reasoning is also attained through the social process of engaging in discourse with others and “connects the ontogenetic and sociogenetic lines of development” (p. 297). Ontogenic development can be understood as an individual’s cognitive structure (Nucci, 2016) with sociogenic development occurring through the process of an “individual participating within a community of practice” (Nucci, 2016, p.
297). This notion of a community of practice that upholds sociogenic development parallels the emphasis on dialogue within critical literacy discourses. In Reasoning: A Social
Picture, Laden (2012) discusses the concept of responsive engagement as a discourse towards a common ground characterized by the process in which each person speaking attempts to find some common conceptual space. Laden (2012) clarifies that the purposes are not to persuade or debate but to in fact build upon our own conceptual understandings
105 with others through dialogue. This form of social engagement can also foster skills and philosophies that require the capacity to perceive, analyze, evaluate, and assess conflicting values and recognize that different situations necessitate differing one’s order of values
(Pardales, 2002), a process known as moral imagination.
Moral Imagination
Advocates of critical literacy see students as agents of change and encourage them to be activists within their local and global communities. It is my assertion that an important element of this process is the exploration of moral imagination. Dialogically examining issues encourages students to explore multiple approaches (and their consequences) to various issues and consider how “our moral behaviour stems from a dynamic interplay of perception, reasoning, and feeling” (Joseph, 2003, p. 8), a process necessary to understand real world issues (Lister, 1987). The purpose of encouraging moral imagination is to avoid limiting the capacity of students and educators to think through complexity both creatively and logically (Joseph, 2003).
Moral imagination is also positioned as an element of moral literacy. Moral literacy can enhance students’ ability to understand moral reasoning and apply it to their own lives.
It introduces students to specific moral philosophies and cases in order to practice and hone their ability to make moral judgements. Moral literacy has three components that include ethics sensitivity, ethical reasoning, and moral imagination (Tuana, 2007). Ethics sensitivity involves:
(1) The ability to determine whether or not a situation involves ethical issues;
(2) Awareness of the moral intensity of the ethical situation; and
106 (3) The ability to identify the moral virtues or values underlying an ethical situation.
These abilities are complex and require training and practice to master. (Tuana,
2007, p. 366)
Following this model, students must first develop the capacity to recognize the presence of an ethical issue and assess its moral intensity, the measure of “harm that could result from an ethical violation or conversely the amount of benefit that could result” (Tuana, 2007, p.
368). This requires the skill of evaluating the intensity of an issue when there are competing ethical demands and shapes a student’s capacity for ethical reasoning such as the ability to understand ethical frameworks and identity and assess facts and values relevant to the ethical issue (Tuana, 2007). Moral literacy relies on primary ethical frameworks: utilitarian or consequentialist, deontological or duty-based, and virtue ethics, in addition to feminist care ethics (Tuana, 2007). Ethical sensitivity and ethical reasoning are essential to understanding issues and constructing meaning, but also necessary to establish new moral insights and imagination.
In relation to the ELA classroom, many of the texts that students explore contain rich narratives that present a multitude of perspectives and theories about our world and are wonderful way to foster moral imagination (Pardales, 2002). Examining literature allows students to engage in moral reasoning because they can place themselves in another character’s position (Tuana, 2007), which can contribute to students’ cultural literacy
(Noddings, 1997). Moral imagination can also be vital to teachers:
Moral imagination requires us to encourage teachers to articulate issues stemming
from their own concerns as practitioners and as individuals—to perceive the moral
possibilities of their work, the ambiguities in their interactions with children and
107 adolescents, and their own uncertainties as human beings. It shows us that we must
compassionately nurture teachers as they reveal their moral dilemmas and the
difficult circumstances of their profession. (Joseph, 2003, p. 18)
Criticality is inherent to moral imagination and critical literacy and promotes a vision of professionalism where educators are sympathetic to their particular situations and needs.
Moral reasoning is also understood as Kohlberg’s psychological approach or dilemma approach (1969, 1984, 1986) and is based upon six stages of moral reasoning. However, there has been a concern that these dilemmas represent “single-variable theories of moral psychology that are simply untenable in the face of the complexity of moral functioning”
(Walker, 2002, p. 354).
While this is a distinct possibility, I also believe these kinds of discussions can serve as a model to students and illustrate the multiple ways of considering and discussing moral issues. For example, in one of my classes, students discussed the case of the Ford
Motor Company’s Pinto and examined the cost benefit analysis used to determine the company’s response to a dangerous product failure. Some students were startled that monetary values are tied to human life. While they understood the concept of life insurance and were aware of the moral and ethical responsibility of major car manufacturers, this case was particularly concerning to them. The Ford Motor Company chose not to recall cars that it knew endangered the lives of customers because statistical and financial projections indicated it would be more cost-effective to pay settlements to the families of the deceased than issue a costly recall. Through this case study, my students learned that moral relativism has real consequences. A company that values its market power and wealth made a decision from a cost benefit analysis standpoint. Ford would provide financial
108 settlements resulting from customer injuries or deaths instead, an action that was morally unsound but financially beneficial. Kohlberg-style cases such as this can provide students with moral and ethical positions to contemplate and imagine possibilities for decisions that uphold both moral and market considerations and provide students with the ability to render moral judgements.
Moral Judgement
Scheffler (1973) makes a very apt observation about the language of moral judgement:
It is to commit oneself, at least in principle, to the ‘moral point of view,’ that is, to
the claim that one’s recommended course has a point which can be clearly seen if
one takes the trouble to survey the situation comprehensively, with impartial and
sympathetic consideration of the interests at stake, and with respect for the persons
involved in the issue. (p. 140)
At first glance, the stated requirements of committing to a moral point of view are clear and well-considered, but they also raise complex questions. Firstly, how does one determine what constitutes the recommended course of action? In particular, by whom and for whom?
Can we accurately self-assess our own impartiality and capacity for sympathy? Impartiality also raises important pedagogical considerations relative to the content, approaches, purposes, and materials that we teach. Is it possible that some issues are simply too morally complex or extreme for us to teach in an impartial manner?
I propose that the majority of social justice literature, by its own nature, implies that students and teachers should engage in moral conduct. In essence, thinking and acting
109 relative to one’s moral beliefs and values could constitute one’s moral conduct. However, there may be other implicit elements. Scheffler (1960) explains:
To teach honesty as if it were a kind of safety rule or conventional form of courtesy
may effectively accomplish the first aim without in the least furthering the second.
It cannot, on the other hand, be denied that a serious attempt to accomplish the
second may delay and even impede the achievement of the first. (To encourage a
reflective and impartial critique of norms may lead to a rejection of our norms.) We
may, as teachers [and as teacher educators], try to further both aims by subjecting
the very norms we are concerned with under the first aim to the very sort of
reflective scrutiny we encourage under the second. (p. 95)
Scheffler’s position on moral education parallels the social justice orientation of critical literacy: if social justice is a goal in critical literacy education, we must respect that encouraging truly reflective critique may also lead to a rejection of norms. Conroy and
Davis (2000) explain that “an educational framework aimed at nurturing sympathetic and empathetic moral engagement has been placed under increasing strain by an alternative vision of educational purposes. Primary relationships are redefined in terms of globalised systems of exchange and control which banish serious moral consideration of the ‘other’
(p. 270). I would argue that these educational purposes include conceptualizations of how classroom time is best used to meet curricular outcomes. For example, the standardized
ELA provincial assessment in high school Grade 12 English language arts still relies on reading and writing as the sole components of data-driven assessment. Reading and writing remain the most common assessment areas in ELA even though there are other English language arts including speaking, listening, viewing, and representing. Because of this, and
110 in order to meet curricular outcomes, teachers may be forced to forfeit the time allocated for moral dialogues because they are excluded from assessment practices. In this manner, assessment practices may be directly or indirectly informing teachers on what language arts are deemed most valuable and important. The concern over a lack of moral deliberation is further complicated by the possibility that some moral deliberations may in fact be pseudo- deliberations, dichotomising between rational and thus irrational. Ellsworth (1989) argues that “while the literature on critical pedagogy charges the teacher with helping students to
“identify and choose between sufficiently articulated and reasonably distinct moral positions,” it offers only the most abstract, decontextualized criteria for choosing one position over others” (p. 300–301). Ellsworth maintains that classrooms are much more complicated:
By prescribing moral deliberation, engagement in the full range of views present,
and critical reflection, the literature on critical pedagogy implies that students and
teachers can and should engage each other in the classroom as fully rational
subjects. According to Valerie Walkerdine, schools have participated in producing
“self-regulating” individuals by developing in students capacities for engaging in
rational argument. Rational argument has operated in ways that set up as its
opposite an irrational Other, which has been understood historically as the province
of women and other exotic Others. In schools, rational deliberation, reflection, and
consideration of all viewpoints has become a vehicle for regulating conflict and the
power to speak, for transforming “conflict into rational argument by means of
universalized capacities for language and reason”. (1989, p. 301)
111 Ellsworth raises many important questions. What fundamentally constitutes a rational argument? Does regulating or avoiding conflict and conflictual deliberation lead to passivity? In part, the question of what comprises rational argument is influenced by an individual’s notion of moral balance.
Moral Balance
In Relativism and Individualism in Moral Judgements, Mordercai Nisan’s (2000) theory of moral balance illustrates that “people take the liberty of straying from the norm when they feel satisfied that overall they maintain an ‘acceptable’ moral balance, based on their commissions and omissions over time, and do not seek to attain moral perfection” (p.
73). Put differently, there can be a limit to how far someone will “stray” from what they deem to be an acceptable moral balance. This would help to explain why teachers occasionally struggle to incorporate controversial discussions; students may not recognize the spectrum of positions as ‘acceptable’ relative to their particular context and may assume a passive stance. Thus any shifts in perspective may only be marginal at best, or possibly repressed. Nisan (2000) further noted that the multitude of philosophies around moral development, including Piaget’s and Kohlberg’ theories of social experience and
Freud’s super-ego all grapple with a fundamental question:
why do people accept morality as objective, binding truth and therefore behave
accordingly, or if they deviate from the moral imperative are filled with guilt or
shame, in spite of the fact that these actions and emotions seem opposed to the
major driving force of behavior – maximization of individual pleasure and utility.
(p. 72)
112 Nisan’s research involved creating a hypothetical scenario where a student cheats on an exam that is critical to their future. In his study, his teenage participants express that they consider the cheating student’s actions as morally indefensible but feel empathy for the student’s situation. Nisan (2000) concluded that “moral norms have lost their absolute force and may be subordinated to other considerations, including personal interests” (2000, p. 7).
His research argues for a norm of ethical pluralism and parallels the work of Williams
(1981) who argued that individuals place self-preference at the forefront of their moral reasoning, an “astonishing change from the traditional view that moral and social imperatives take precedence a priori over personal desires and inclinations” (Nisan, 2000, p. 76). This new individualism “no longer only confers rights and freedom, it also presents a demand: to preserve and be faithful to one’s personal identity” (Nisan, 2000, p. 76).
Nisan’s research into identity has also highlighted that “self and identity during adolescence (Damon & Hart, 1988) generates a center of gravity that carries a kind of obligatory feeling to sustain systemic stability and balance, to maintain the self as a good person” (Nisan, 2000, p. 77). For this reason, amongst adolescents, “morality’s absolute validity is replaced by a commitment to personal identity; respect for society is superseded by an acceptance of its expectations and norms on the basis of their pragmatic meaning”
(Nisan, 2000, p. 81). In sum, Nisan’s work highlights the importance of recognizing personal identity as the central component of the dialogic process.
Care Ethics
Care ethics arose in the early 1980s through feminist philosophies of care and caring labor, most notably found within the works of Carol Gilligan and Nel Noddings thus merging fields of psychology (Gilligan, 1982) as well as philosophy (Noddings, 1984).
113 Care ethics is “a richly situated ethics that argues that humans are embedded in a complex network of relationships in which caring relationship is unique… (and) includes the belief that partiality is an ethical good” (Tuana, 2007, p. 371). In particular, emotions are considered central to ethical behavior (Tuana, 2007). Nel Noddings’ philosophy asserts that the act of caring and being cared for are fundamental human needs (Noddings, 1992) and emphasizes that roles between the caregiver and receiver are in constant flux. Roles are constructed through a reciprocal model “made up of strings of encounters in which the parties exchange places; both members are carers and cared-fors as opportunities arise” (p.
17). This is similar to Freire’s learning model where teachers and students operate on an equal plane of learning grounded in care and authenticity in order to reduce the likelihood of a power imbalance.
The caring pedagogy model rests upon four central elements that include modeling, dialogue, practice, and confirmation (Tappan, 1998). In particular, Nodding’s philosophy of inclusion and the capacity to empathize with others is grounded in dialogue
(Monchinsky, 2010) but also heavily relies on understanding: “The purpose of dialogue is to come into contact with ideas and to understand, to meet the other and to care”
(Noddings, 1984, p. 186). Thus the focus is not to agree with the other party but to identify with how they feel (Noddings, 1984). Similarly, within the field of critical literacy, Freire
(1998) emphasized the importance of “listening ‘connectedly’ and without prejudice to what the other is saying” (p. 107). In this respect, the foundations of dialogue associated with critical literacy and care ethics are similar in their attempt to recognize the speaker as an individual and to connect with them at a humanistic level. Thus dialogic learning in the
114 ELA is not solely about valuing the capacity to communicate effectively and critically, but also the value of human relationships and the need for a sense of connectivity and care.
In many respects, the ethics of care are central to critical literacy’s goal of creating a more ‘just’ society through critical consciousness and border pedagogies (Giroux, 2006) that value commonality through difference. This connection also raises important questions about the nature of the virtues and values we envision critical literacy to uphold. As
Puolimatka (in Beck, 2005) states, “critical literacy is tied to notions of impartiality and fairness, as well as to moral virtues such as honesty and courage; thus, critical literacy here goes beyond intellectual exercises in critical thinking to include emotional and moral qualities” (p. 395). Research of the moral and ethical dimensions of teaching and learning raise many important ideas. In particular, since critical literacy upholds many aims of moral literacy, is it ultimately a form of moral and political literacy at its heart? It is certainly plausible in light of its philosophical foundation on dissipating social inequity, focus upon respect and the desire for truth and understanding, as well as its emphasis upon empowerment, equality, and justice, which inevitably leads to the discussion of what is right and what is good.
In relation the question of what is right and good, Dewey described ethics as “the science that deals with conduct, in so far as this is considered as right or wrong, good or bad” (1908, p.1). He suggested that examining ethics is problematic since one must “study the inner process as determined by the outer conditions or as changing these outer conditions, and the outward behavior or institution as affecting the inner life” (1908, p. 3).
This illustrates that the examination of ethics is multifaceted and involves the symbiotic.
As an ethical pragmatist, Dewey believed that “ethical inquiry is the use of reflective
115 intelligence to revise our judgments in light of the consequences of acting on them. Value judgments are tools for satisfactorily redirecting conduct when habits fail” (Anderson,
2019, para. 2).
Notably, Dewey differentiates between right and good explaining “when we speak of conduct as right we think of it as before a judge…We think too of this standard as a
“moral law” which we “ought” to obey…If I think of “good,” I am approaching conduct from the standpoint of value. I am thinking of what is desirable” (1908, p. 7-8). Here,
Dewey highlight the difference between what one should do and what one may want to do, each with their own rationales and consequences. This is further illustrated by Dewey’s belief that “expression of difference is not only a right of the other person but is a means of enriching one’s life-experience, and is inherent in the democratic personal way of life”
(Dewey, 1998, p. 342). Because the ethical concepts of good, right, and virtue have different origins and modes of operation, Dewey concluded that “they can be at cross purposes and exercise divergent forces in the formation of judgment” (1984, p. 280).
Dewey’s work formed the basis for future research in the field of democracy which was of special interest to critical literacy pedagogy.
Exploring the Sociopolitical
The emergence of moral schooling was influenced by key publications in the 1980s and 1990s that highlighted important moral and ethical dimensions of teaching. In turn, this research extended beyond the scope of the moral education of students to include a broader exploration of the moral and ethical role and practices of professional teachers. From a critical perspective, two seminal books on moral schooling included Teachers as
116 Intellectuals by Henry Giroux (1988) and Democratic Schools by Michael Apple and
James Beane (1995).
These two key sociopolitical texts, Teachers as Intellectuals and Democratic
Schools, successfully merged the moral and political (Stengel & Tom, 2006). They highlighted the fact that since almost all children attend school, schools are morally obligated to examine and introduce students to concepts of democracy since it was “the basis for how we govern ourselves, the concept by which we measure the wisdom and worth of social policies and shifts, the ethical anchor we seek when our political ship seems to drift” (Apple & Beane, 1995, p. 4-5).
Democratic classrooms are described as embodying:
1. The open flow of ideas, regardless of their popularity, that enable people to be as
fully informed as possible.
2. Faith in the individual and collective capacity of people to create possibilities for
resolving problems.
3. The use of critical reflection and analysis to evaluate ideas, problems, and
policies.
4. Concern for the welfare of others and “the common good.”
5. Concern for the dignity and rights of individuals and minorities.
6. The understanding that democracy is not so much an “ideal” to be pursued as an
“idealized” set of values that we must live and that must guide our life as a
people.
7. The organization of social institutions to promote and extend the democratic way
of life. (Apple & Beane, 1995, p. 6–7)
117 Democratic Schools parallels many of the same democratic aims of critical literacy
(Freire, 1970) and identifies moral virtues as a key element of democracy (Ciardiello,
2004). From this perspective, education is the act of preparing students for the world beyond the walls of the classroom where their values, worldview and character will dictate their involvement in, and contribution to, the process of democratic engagement. Dewey states that it is the “responsibility of the democratic high school to develop in each person the ability to shape himself or herself and society toward ever higher ends” (Tanner &
Tanner, 1980, p. 289). Giroux (1992) emphasizes that democratic education should not be
“a version of democracy cleansed of vision, possibility, or struggle” (p. 8) noting that, “The politics of critical literacy and cultural difference engages rather than retreats from those problems that make democracy messy, vibrant, and noisy” (Giroux, 1993, p. 376).
Just how open teachers are, and should be, to the exploration of ‘messy’ issues is of great importance. Bull (2006) contends that teachers often avoid examining issues of morality in lieu of teaching empirical facts because they are “controversial metaphysical premises that not all students can accept, especially in a nation of diverse cultures and religions” (p. 21). He also questions if civic and moral education can effectively be separated. He explains, “Civic education is certainly a kind of moral education in that it promotes and supports a public morality, that is, the agreements about the principles governing citizens’ relationships with and obligations to one another that emerge from the process of reflective equilibrium” (Bull, 2006, p. 26). Moral education and critical literacy share a similar philosophical goal since both envision preparing students to be ‘good’ citizens and fundamentally good people and highlights the need to discuss how moral
118 education correlates to visions of educating for democracy. In particular, philosophical deliberations can be highly valuable:
Education for democracy, then, must extend to education in moral issues and
democratic dispositions; training the heart as well as the head. What do we do with
this freedom we have, the choices and decisions we daily face? How do we live as
free men and free women? Is freedom the same as license? Or does self-government
begin with governing of one’s self? What happens when rights are not accompanied
by responsibilities? These are some of the questions with which we must engage
our students. And these are the questions our children want us to engage them in,
for – despite their transparent protests – they do not want to be set totally adrift,
unmoored, “free” to make up the rules as they go along. This, as they know in their
hearts, is not freedom but abandonment. (Albert Shanker Institute, 2008, p. 287)
In the field of moral education, Joseph and Efron (2005) classify seven approaches and assumptions about moral education that they identify as ‘moral worlds’ that “hold different understandings of morality itself” (p. 532), including character education, cultural heritage, caring community, peace education, social action, just community, and the ethical community. In the ‘social action’ world, considered a praxial end of critical literacy,
“values of justice and compassion guide a curriculum focused on the political nature of society” (p. 529). Students envision themselves as “social and political beings with the right to access the systems of influence in communities and the larger world. Through involvement in social action, students come to believe in themselves as moral agents” (p.
530). Similarly, classrooms in the ‘just community’ are imagined as democratic settings where students deliberate moral dilemmas through cooperative decision-making where the
119 “ideal of democracy is both a moral standard and guiding light, raising awareness of good citizenship within a moral context” (p. 531). Politically and morally-charged conversations can elicit problematic emotional responses for students and teachers that require care, consideration, and transparent pedagogical purposes which are effectively an ethical approach focused on student well-being.
As one examines the purposes and history of critical literacy, it becomes increasingly difficult to separate political and moral discourse, especially where moral issues pertain to conceptualizations of democracy. In the context of this study, moral dimensions are the moral questions that arise from the examination of socio-political issues within critical literacy. Critical literacy research regularly uses the terms ‘ethical’ and ‘moral’ to justify its political and ideological orientation, although reference to the fields of moral philosophy and moral education remain quite distant from its claims (Campbell, 2013). I argue that if critical literacy is truly a moral endeavor with democratic aims towards what we constitute as just and right, then it must dialogically explore moral dimensions. Kanpol (1999) explains:
Critical literacy empowers individuals in the postmodern sense to analyze and
synthesize the culture of the school and their own particular cultural circumstances
(race, class, and gender relations as connected to policy making, curricular
concerns, teacher-student and teacher-teacher relationships). Within this
postmodern critical literacy, a critical pedagogue makes decisions that are
consciously moral and political. (p. 54–55)
Educators and students require a measure of guidance about the type of moral education that critical literacy advocates espouse. While many advocate for moral education and the
120 importance of shaping students beyond academic ability, their intentions and ends vary considerably along philosophical, political, and ideological lines. Liston and Zeichner
(1987) further note that examining the moral dimensions of teaching can help to “identify connections between life in the classroom and wider social conditions” (p. 120), which promotes the ongoing effort to create a more cohesive relationship between the lives of students in and out of the classroom.
Conclusion
The moral nature of teaching naturally incorporates some manner of influence as to what is good or right. Teachers should continue to develop their methods and approach with increased ethical awareness as a process of self-cultivation given their inescapable influence on their students. Virtues like honesty, courage, empathy, and responsibility remain central to a critical literacy educator’s role. The various conceptual perspectives of moral and ethical practices have provided a myriad of opportunities to consider the histories of character education, values clarification, virtue ethics (Fenstermacher &
Richardson, 2004), cognitive moral development (Kohlberg, 1970), domain theory (Nucci,
2008, 2016), moral imagination (Joseph, 2003), care ethics (Gilligan, 1982; Noddings,
1948, 1992), democratic schooling (Apple & Beane, 1995; Giroux, 1988), and topics including moral judgment (Scheffler, 1960), and moral balance (Nisan, 2000). These conceptual perspectives and topics bring a wealth of considerations but highlight some key features for dialogic critical literacy educators.
It is important to note that character education and moral education traditionally focus upon educating students to fit within the status quo, thus socializing them to society as it exists. Critical literacy on the other hand focuses upon disrupting, challenging, and
121 changing the status quo and using education as a means to do so. Despite this, however, the recognition of the collective, cooperative nature of learning, impact of conscience to improve livelihoods, reflexive nature, and value of cognitive conflict towards new insights around societal values are reflected in both critical literacy and moral education, albeit in variable ways.
In order to understand the moral and philosophical notions that underpin what we consider right and wrong, we must engage in dialogic learning to develop an understanding about the purpose behind our choices and actions. This leads us to reflect upon our actions and ask greater existential questions: Is this right? For whom? How do I know? These are the very questions that critical literacy pedagogues attempt to uphold in trying to elicit and seek critical authenticity through learning from and with others. This process can lead to a level of moral imagination that enhances our capacity to grapple with the realities of moral dilemmas. In particular, critical literacy dialogic learning can provide students with
“models for what they can do when faced with difficult life situations, the need to make a moral decision, the necessity to make a choice, or the opportunity to make their own decisions and thus create their own path” (Ada, 2003, p. 10).
Examining moral questions encourages us to explore areas where we believe morality should shape and inform decisions. As they explore societal, political, and cultural issues, students will recognize that taking a moral stance and examining the moral dimensions of their thinking requires acknowledging “that some actions, some decisions, are most justifiable than others and that we can use arguments, appropriate evidence, and particular reasons to support that belief” (Besio & Pronzini, 2013, p. 246). This process
122 reveals a lot about our personal character (Freeman, 1998) and identity. It supports the aims of critical pedagogy: it is a reflexive process grounded in learning together.
Identity is at the heart of examining moral and ethical dimensions in the classroom because the identities of teachers and students are intertwined with their respective classroom ‘roles’. In one way, this can be easier for students because they are constructing their identities in an environment that envisions students as learners and novices.
Conversely, teachers do not benefit from this freedom; the very nature of their positions assumes power, assuredness and authority. Teachers are held to higher ethical standards and stricter expectations around how their ‘identities’ exist in the classroom and the corresponding moral balance that teachers must develop is complex. But if critical pedagogy requires an admission of honesty and an environment of trust to truly create an equilibrium of equality grounded in authenticity, how is this created if a teacher’s personal and professional identities conflict? Certainly, teachers have a moral duty to uphold, but what constitutes this sense of duty, and to whom is this duty owed?
As Freire (1970) reminds us, “At the point of encounter there are neither utter ignoramuses nor perfect sages; there are only people who are attempting, together, to learn more than they know now” (p. 90). This vision of critical literacy is as an ongoing, reflexive, and conscious-building process. The examination of the moral and ethical dimensions of critical literacy in the ELA classroom highlights both important and complex considerations for students and educators alike, not least of which is the potential dialogic tension created when examining conflictual topics and ideas in the English language arts classroom.
123 Chapter VI – Curriculum and Conflict
To understand the ways that dialogic conflict may arise in the English Language
Arts classroom, this chapter examines how the existing Manitoba ELA curriculum supports and embeds critical literacy and social justice-oriented aims. This chapter then compares this curriculum to the a newly-implemented draft Manitoba ELA curriculum framework to determine how it also supports and embeds critical literacy and social justice-oriented aims.
These curriculum documents were analyzed in order to address two primary considerations: how the current curriculum embed critical literacy foundations directly and/or indirectly and, secondly, whether or not these critical literacy foundations have evolved to become more prominent within the proposed curriculum. This will provide a clearer sense as to the degree in which Manitoba educators are being encouraged to politicize their classrooms through their critical literacy engagement in the ELA classroom. Exploring the current curriculum outcomes allows for an initial point of access in order to determine how current
Manitoba ELA educators are encouraged to include critical literacy as part of the taught curriculum. Of course, this document is not an exhaustive assessment of all the methods a teacher might utilize critical literacy practices, but it does provide insights into how the language of critical literacy and its outcomes might be embedded.
Additionally, the curricula of several provinces, including Manitoba, that form the
Western Canadian Protocol for Collaboration in Basic Education were analyzed in order to understand how they specifically address concerns that may arise due to conflictual dialogues in the ELA classroom. This comparison between the proposed Manitoba ELA curriculum and other current provincial curricula was made to identify similarities and differences in the literature around the manner in which dialogic conflict is, or is not,
124 supported and addressed, particularly for educators who engage in conflictual dialogues within the classroom.
The Current Manitoba High School ELA Curriculum
The context of this philosophical inquiry is set within the Manitoba English
Language Arts curriculum that is part of the Western Canadian Protocol for Collaboration in Basic Education. While there is a collaboration among the provinces on overarching goals, each provincial and territorial curricula document varies. This study focuses specifically on the high school curriculum which is a part of the Kindergarten through
Senior 4 (Grade 12) documents.
In October 2019, the Manitoba Government released the English Language Arts
Curriculum Framework: A Living Document. This is described as a ‘living’ document because this virtual curriculum “like our cellphone applications, will be updated as needs and opportunities occur” (Government of Manitoba, 2017b, para. 1). This curriculum currently includes Kindergarten through Grade 8 ELA outcomes. While this document does not yet include the new high school outcomes, this living document is beneficial to this study because it provides potential insights into how the Grade 9 through Grade 12 ELA band descriptors will be developed. The current high school Manitoba Senior 4
Comprehensive ELA curriculum (Government of Manitoba, 2000) identifies a cohesive series of outcomes and performance standards related to general and specific learning outcomes from Senior 1 (Grade 9) to Senior 4 (Grade 12). The General Learning Outcomes
(GLO) are attained through the process of listening, speaking, reading, writing, viewing.
The Senior 1 through Senior 4 Manitoba ELA Curriculum (Government of Manitoba,
2000) includes five GLO’s:
125 General Learning Outcome 1: Explore thoughts, ideas, feelings, and experiences
General Learning Outcome 2: Comprehend and respond personally and critically to oral, print, and other media texts
General Learning Outcome 3: Manage ideas and information
General Learning Outcome 4: Enhance the clarity and artistry of Communication
General Learning Outcome 5: Celebrate and build community
Each GLO is comprised of a series of specific learning outcomes (SLOs). My examination of these specific learning outcomes allowed for an initial overview to determine which elements aligned to critical literacy outcomes based upon prominent critical literacy frameworks. This study used the Freebody and Luke (1990) four resources model (1990), the Lewison, Leland, & Harste (2008) four dimensions framework model, and Janks’ (2000) four perspectives. These models were selected because they have been effectively developed in previous studies (Van Sluys et al., 2006) and address important elements of critical literacy learning within the current and draft ELA Manitoba curricula.
The Freebody and Luke (1990) four-resources model proposes that writing practices and reading practices are not exclusive and need to be authentic and contextualized to be meaningful. As they explain,
It was our position that determining how to teach literacy could not be simply
“scientific,” but rather had to involve a moral, political, and cultural decision about
the kind of literate practices needed to enhance both peoples' agency over their life
trajectories and communities' intellectual, cultural, and semiotic resources in
multimediated economies. (Luke and Freebody, 1999, p. 2)
126 In this model, students have “roles” that include code breaking (coding competency), meaning making (semantic competency), text user (pragmatic competency), and text critic
(critical competency). This model provides a broader examination of critical literacy practices. Coding competency includes the broader skill of breaking the codes of written texts, including the alphabet, and sounding words, spelling, and structural conventions. The semantic competency is the process of creating and understanding a text’s interior meaning and experiences of various cultural discourses and meaning systems. Pragmatic competency includes the negotiation of social relationships, the cultural/social functions of texts in and out of school, and how these contexts shape elements such as tone and formality. Lastly, critical competence is the process of critiquing and analyzing texts with the understanding that texts are not ideologically neutral. Here, the concept of ‘silencing’ is demonstrated when a student questions whose voice is being represented, which voices might be silenced or missing, and the ability of a text to shape and influence ‘readers’.
Critical competence also focuses on elements including bias and the ability to write and create new hybrid texts that represent multifaced positions and perspectives.
Lewison, Leland, and Harste’s (2008) model allows for a closer examination of the critical dimensions of the specific outcomes. This four-dimension framework emphasizes critical literacy as a continual process of movement between the personal and the social; it begins by placing students’ social capital at the center of their literacy learning. These four dimensions of critical literacy include: 1) Disrupting the commonplace (looking at the world through different lenses and problematizing/ interrogating texts); 2) Considering multiple viewpoints, particularly voices that are marginalized or silenced; 3) Focusing on the sociopolitical issues of power, citizenship and politics; and 4) Taking action to promote
127 social justice (praxis and reflection for transformation. The last dimension “is often perceived as the definition of critical literacy, yet we cannot take informed action against oppression or promote social justice without expanded understandings and perspectives gained from the other three dimensions” (Lewison, Flint, Van Sluys, 2002, pp. 383–384).
Janks’ (2000) model focuses upon potential approaches to critical literacy relative to language and power and includes four perspectives:
(a) to understand how language maintains social and political forms of domination;
(b) to provide access to dominant forms of language without compromising the
integrity of non-dominant forms; (c) to promote a diversity which requires attention
to the way that uses of language create social identities; and (d) to bring a design
perspective that emphasizes the need to use and select from a wide range of
available cultural sign systems. (Bishop, 2014, p. 54)
Collectively, Freebody and Luke’s (1990), Lewison, Leland, and Harste’s (2015), and
Janks’ (2000) models encapsulate the foundations of critical literacy pedagogy and learning to analyze this curriculum.
The current Manitoba ELA curricula (Government of Manitoba, 2000) SLOs were analyzed in relation to the above models as well as their relevance to the dialogical learning process in the classroom. For example, editing a written text for grammar would not be relevant to this analysis as it emphasizes reading and writing skills, as opposed to orality.
Lastly, I highlighted outcomes that may resonate with the moral and/or ethical dimensions of critical literacy learning in the ELA classroom. The purpose of this preliminary examination was to determine the degree to which the current ELA curricular outcomes
128 support critical literacy practices and to assess the possible entry point of the proposed
ELA curriculum framework.
Specific Learning Outcomes
General Learning Outcome 1: Explore thoughts, ideas, feelings, and experiences
Express Ideas (1.1.1): Weigh and assess the validity of a range of ideas,
observations, opinions, and emotions to reconsider and/or affirm positions
The first specific learning outcome is of particular relevance since it focuses on the examination and expression of ideas, two foundational elements of critical literacy and dialogic learning. This general outcome highlights the feelings and experiences shaped by students’ beliefs and values. Thus by its very nature, there is an implied emphasis upon students’ learned experiences and a recognition of individual stance and identity.
An ability to reconsider or affirm positions suggests a reflexive element to the process and may lend itself to encouraging students to approach their learning with some suspension of belief or judgement. It also implies that students are intended to negotiate their stances relative to others, a process that supports dialogic learning and critical literacy. This first outcome may encourage more robust and thus dissonant spaces, again, hallmarks of critical literacy learning.
Consider Others’ Ideas (1.1.2): Invite diverse and challenging ideas and opinions
through a variety of means to facilitate the re-examination of own ideas and
positions
This outcome very much parallels a critical literacy philosophy, particularly because of its emphasis upon challenging ideas that may disrupt students’ common place and inviting a
129 variety of ideas. The emphasis on the weighing of diverse texts also has the potential to reveal socially situated and inherent power structures (Lankshear & Knobel, 2003). This also mirrors the second dimension of Lewison, Flint, and Van Sluys’ (2002) critical literacy model that emphasizes interrogating multiple viewpoints. It also supports the critical literacy-specific tasks of exploring supplementary texts (Houser, 2001), reading multiple texts (Mellor & Patterson, 2000; Spires, 1999), and potentially producing counter-texts
(Behrman, 2006). This engagement in diverse and challenging ideas can highlight specific ethical concerns about the capacity of dissonant dialogues to disinter conflict due to the consideration of ‘challenging ideas’. This outcome can also mirror the critical competencies of Luke and Freebody’s (1999) pragmatic competencies in the capacity to participate to acknowledge different ways of knowing and experiences for new understandings.
Experiment with Language and Forms (1.1.3): Vary language uses and forms of
expression to discover how they influence ideas and enhance the power of
communication.
From a dialogic perspective, language uses and expression can apply to the dialogic process and the effect of dialogue on the learning process. Expression may also include the manner in which students and teachers orally communicate ideas. This may apply to a number of elements such as the factors that support common courtesy when speaking and listening such as body language, pacing of arguments, tone, word choice and specificity. In terms of orality, there is much that can be examined in terms of communication because these elements impact the level to which others will listen. If someone feels slighted in this communication process, then the power or ability to communicate is reduced or lost. Thus,
130 understanding what makes powerful communication from a dialogic standpoint includes many important variables that must be acknowledged. The exploration of influence is similar to Luke and Freebody’s (1999) text critic role that encourages examining for points of view and bias.
Express Preferences (1.1.4): Explore how personal experiences influence the
selection of particular texts and how texts influence perspectives.
Clearly, this is a very student-oriented outcome that places them at the center of their learning and is central to critical literacy, particularly the exploration of students’ personal social contexts (Street, 1993). One potential concern with this specific outcome is that students’ identities are at the center of this process and, consequently, if the dialogical process becomes conflictual their lived experiences may be challenged, in turn heightening emotional sensitivity resulting from the limited emotional or experiential distance from the topic. A further question arises: who determines the selection of these texts?
Develop Understanding (1.2.1): Explain how new knowledge, ideas, experiences,
and perspectives reshape knowledge, ideas, and beliefs.
This reflexive outcome exemplifies a critical literacy approach because students are encouraged to examine their personal growth metacognitively through their interaction with “new knowledge, ideas, experiences, and perspectives reshape knowledge, ideas, and beliefs”. Similar to outcome 1.1.2, this new knowledge, ideas, and experience may also incite heightened criticality as well as discussion of conflictual topics and/or ideas.
Explain Opinions (1.2.2): Explore the strengths and limitations of various
viewpoints on an issue or topic and identify aspects for further consideration;
131 evaluate implications of particular perspectives when generating and responding to
texts.
This outcome supports a dialogical critical literacy ELA classroom and extends beyond the sharing of ideas to facilitating the critical assessment of their strengths and limitations. It may also lead to some dialogic complexity for teachers and learners because of the analytical nature of exploring viewpoints, assumptions and premises that carry the risk of becoming dissonant and conflictual. In particular, teachers who place themselves at the forefront of these dialogues may be pressured by students to weigh in on whose position is deemed ‘strong’ or ‘weak’ and it may be hard for students and teachers alike to evaluate the implications of their own perspectives due to their own biases. As a result, the capacity to generate implications may be limited. This limitation can be mitigated by the exploration of new texts taking diverse positions and stances that expand or modify previously held perspectives.
This is similar to the next outcome: Combine Ideas (1.2.3): Consider ways in which interrelationships of ideas provide insight when generating and responding to texts as both focus on how viewpoints intersect, overlap, and conflict. These outcomes also correlate closely to the Extend Understanding (1.2.4): Extend breadth and depth of understanding by considering various experiences, perspectives, and sources of knowledge when generating and responding to texts. Combined, they encourage a rich and critical examination through a variety of sources and simultaneously encourage criticality and multiple viewpoints
(Luke & Freebody, 1997). This outcome also raises the question of whose ‘thoughts, ideas, feelings, and experiences’ will be valued. It is possible that the teacher’s perceived authority will limit questioning and leave the topic unchallenged. This scenario is further
132 complicated if there are corresponding political or moral stances as it can connect to issues of bias, teacher authority, and even indoctrination. In this case, indoctrination may even occur if “the learner comes to accept uncritically and as certain beliefs which are false or of questionable certainty” (Casement, 1983 p. 237). Thus the process of exploring thoughts, ideas, feelings, and experiences must be done critically.
It should be further noted that the manner in which we engage with new information tends to confirm our pre-existing convictions (Hart et al., 2009). For example, confirmation bias can create a false sense of certainty. If a student for example feels certain about their position, there is less motivation or desire to ‘learn’ from others. Thus an important method for countering confirmation bias is to find positions that can slightly shift one’s position without countering it and provide viable consideration that may confirm but also apply new layers of thought or complementary perspectives to one’s position.
General Learning Outcome 2: Comprehend and respond personally and critically to oral, print, and other media texts
The language in General Learning Outcome 2 parallels foundations of critical literacy as students are building understanding by responding critically to a variety of texts.
While this extends beyond dialogic learning, many ELA dialogues are elicited through a study of various texts as a catalyst for in-class discussions. While this study conforms to dialogic learning, this GLO encompasses a significant element of critical literacy learning.
Prior Knowledge (2.1.1): Analyze connections between personal experiences and
prior knowledge of language and texts to develop interpretations of a variety of
texts.
133 This outcome may be a starting point that encourages students’ reflexivity and some conception of their initial positions/stances. The following two outcomes, Textual Cues
(2.1.3) and Cueing Systems (2.1.4), focus on syntactic, semantic, graphophonic, and pragmatic cueing systems that lend themselves more closely to textual analysis. The outcome Experience Various Texts (2.2.1) parallels the next outcome, Connect Self, Texts, and Culture (2.2.2), that encourages students to explore Canadian and international texts.
In this respect, these specific learning outcomes highlights Janks’(2000) four orientation model in which a diversity of perspective draws attention to the ways that language is associated with various social identities. This specific outcome can also be perceived as an entry point into Lewison, Leland, and Harste’s (1995) model’s focus on the sociopolitical.
Once students first analyze their personal experiences and prior knowledge, they can then move beyond the personal to explore sociopolitical systems and question the legitimacy of unequal power relations, issues of oppression, and privilege. The initial analysis of the personal domain creates the foundation for this particular stage, essential to critical literacy development.
SLO 2.2.3 through 2.3.4, which includes Appreciate the Artistry of Texts (2.2.3),
Forms and Genres (2.3.1), Techniques and Elements (2.3.2), Vocabulary (2.3.3), and
Experiment with Language (2.3.4) place primary emphasis on analysis particular to exploring different forms and genres, techniques, vocabulary, literary techniques, and their impacts on thought, emotions, and behaviours. Collectively, these SLOs emphasize the literary analysis element of critical literacy.
The next SLO, Create Original Texts (2.3.5): Create original texts to communicate ideas and enhance understanding of forms and techniques, in some respects represents the
134 active nature of critical literacy that sees students move beyond the process of analyzing and reflecting to creating original texts. This can be an empowering process that situates students’ synthesis at the core of their learning and can be a text that contours critical insights through the exploration of missing voice(s) or issues of power. As such, SLO 2.3.5 can be the opportunity where students create a countertext (Janks, 2000). Additionally, encouraging students to create their own texts supports their identities and is at the forefront of ELA learning.
This second general learning outcome has many important features. In particular, there is an emphasis on detailed analysis. While critical literacy proponents often speak to the big ideas behind critical literacy, in the classroom, it begins with reading comprehension, vocabulary building, close reading, interferences, and annotating.
General Learning Outcome 3: Manage ideas and information
This outcome applies an inquiry-based lens from conception to process. The first
SLO states, Use Personal Knowledge (3.1.1): Consider own and others’ expertise to explore breadth and depth of knowledge, and focus inquiry or research based on parameters of task. Students begin by inquiring about an initial area of interest in order to narrow their focus. They are encouraged to Ask Questions (3.1.2) to frame their study,
Participate in Group Inquiry (3.1.3) in efforts for peer-supported collaboration, Create and
Follow a Plan (3.1.4). They can then move on to Identify Personal and Peer Knowledge
(3.2.1) through the inquiry process, Identify Sources (3.2.2) and Evaluate Sources (3.2.3):
Evaluate factors that affect the credibility, authenticity, accuracy, and bias of information sources for inquiry or research. This step highlights the micro elements of critical literacy.
135 Students then Access Information (3.2.4), Make Sense of Information (3.2.5), Organize
Information (3.3.1), Record Information (3.3.2), Develop New Understanding (3.3.4), and
Evaluate Information (3.3.3). Similar to SLO 3.2.3, there is a reflexive nature to the research process that again mirrors a critical literacy framework in that the questions are ongoing.
General Learning Outcome 3 is a beneficial outcome from the perspective of a dialogical critical literacy model. In particular, it focuses upon the process of inquiry. As such, it encourages reflexivity and collaboration, values multiple perspectives, and facilitates revising and reworking ideas. The re-working of ideas highlights the criticality and openness to new considerations and ideas. This GLO encourages teachers to value students as individuals by encouraging a student-choice framework (Janks, 2000).
However, with an outcomes-based model and collaborative focus, there are bound to be complexities when working with others. From an ethical standpoint, intragroup conflicts can negatively impact student learning (Dawes & Sams, 2004) and can includes task- related conflicts, process-related conflicts, and relationship-related conflicts (Lee, Huh, &
Reigeluth, 2015). While these are often emblematic of intragroup work, this can be that much more complex when infused with deep-seated political stances and perceptions and experiences of disempowerment or oppression, all of which are central to critical literacy learning. Additionally, research into group inquiry has found that virtues such as open- mindedness are essential. According to Roberts (2011), open-mindedness is key to considering new ideas, moving beyond the overt certainty of one’s own position, and unreflectively rejecting the ideas of others. Thus while inquiry methods are valuable
136 models for research and collaboration, small-group dynamics require also careful consideration of their potential conflictual nature.
In a 2014 study entitled, “Genuine Inquiry: Widely Espoused Yet Rarely Enacted”
(Le Fevre, Robinson, & Sinnema, 2014), the concept of genuine inquiry is defined as a process that is motivated by a desire to learn, where individuals may come to determine that their beliefs are misinformed or incomplete, and are willing to rethink their position even if they had a formulated stance. They note that some of the barriers to genuine inquiry may include cognitive biases, perceptions of risk, and limited skills in genuine inquiry, such as the lack of interpersonal communication skills (Le Fevre, Robinson, & Sinnema,
2014). They add:
We have provided a critical perspective on the concept of inquiry and argued that a
distinction, based on the virtue of open-mindedness, is needed between genuine and
pseudo-inquiry. While interpersonal inquiry, in contexts of professional learning
and problem solving is highly valued, our research suggests that genuine inquiry in
situations of anticipated difference and disagreement at least, is relatively rare.
When conversations are risky and likely to arouse negative emotions, genuine
inquiry is overtaken by the desire to win, and to do so while avoiding risk and
negative emotion. (p. 895)
The capacity to be open-minded is an important pedagogical and learning skill but is also complex. For example, a person can appear open-minded, but not necessarily feel that way, or feel open-minded but not necessarily act that way. In The Limitations of the Open Mind,
Fantl (2018) reasons that open-mindedness requires a particular willingness to do the following:
137 1. Acknowledge the possibility that anytime you believe something, it is possible
that you are wrong
2. Transcend a default cognitive standpoint.
3. Give serious consideration to novel ideas.
4. Re-examine your views in the face of alternative information and new evidence.
5. Think again despite having formulated a view.
6. Take relevant evidence and argument into account in revising your beliefs and
values.
7. Take relevant evidence and argument in account in forming your beliefs and
values.
8. Gain beliefs in a particular, reasonable way.
9. Subject beliefs to rational formation.
10. Lose beliefs in a particular, reasonable way.
11. Revise beliefs in a particular, reasonable way.
12. If called for, let your beliefs go. (pp. 4–5)
Fantl (2018) additionally notes four stages of a closed-minded attitude: 1) Believing that there is no counter-argument to your position; 2) An awareness of a counter position without knowing the salient details; 3) Hearing a counter argument but not yet evaluating it; and 4) Evaluating the counterargument and being unable to expose flaws of logic. He adds:
In the first three stages, open-mindedness requires that you’re willing to reduce
your confidence on the condition that you reach the fourth stage. At the fourth
stage, though, to open-minded toward the argument, you must be willing to reduce
138 your confidence conditional on arriving at the very stage that you’ve arrived at. As
noted, I take no stand on whether willingness to do something entails a disposition
to do that very thing. But if it does, once you’ve arrived at the fourth stage, to be
open-minded toward the argument, you must reduce your confidence. (pp. 25–26)
Thus I recommend that inquiry-based outcomes require some unpacking of the notion of
‘open-mindedness’ because this curriculum does not sufficiently address ‘open- mindedness’, particularly the kinds of questions and stages students should be considering to support reflexivity.
General Learning Outcome 4: Enhance the clarity and artistry of Communication
This GLO focuses on specific elements of communication. It explores how to
Generate Ideas (4.1.1), Choose Forms (4.1.2), Organize Ideas (4.1.3) and Appraise Own and Others’ Work (4.2.1), the latter explained in the following way: Appraise and discuss the effectiveness of own and others’ choices relative to content, form, style, and presentation. The emphasis on appraising others’ content is also important in encouraging resistant reading. Resistant reading was first conceptualized by Stuart Hall and termed as resistant spectatorship because to applied to various modalities such as television (Tewell,
2016). In this sense, ‘texts’ can be read and interpreted from three positions including dominant, negotiated, and oppositional. The dominant position highlights that the intended meaning, or dominant ideology, is accepted by the reader. The negotiated position implies that the reader accepts some but not necessarily all meaning and may modify elements to best mirror their own personal stance. Lastly, the oppositional stance implies that the text is opposed to and resisted. This notion of resistant reading is often synonymous with the term
139 critical because it does not imply a simple acceptance of information but rather analyzes it critically:
Hall’s theory is noteworthy in that it explicitly puts the viewer in a position of
potential agency or power and recognizes not only that individuals are far from
passive receptacles for messages from mass media but also that all texts hold
multiple meanings. Further, resistant spectatorship acknowledges that media is
decoded in culturally situated contexts and that one’s interpretation of a message is
necessarily dependent upon one’s personal identity and lived experiences, including
race, class, gender, and sexuality. (Tewell, 2016, p. 291)
Because student analysis of authors’ stances directly impacts their own positioning as readers, resistant reading can encourage students to consider how texts explore different identities such as race, language, or gender (Foss, 2002). Thus an analytical focus upon the process of communication, along with the clarity and artistry, can simultaneously provide opportunities to support resistant reading (Caviglia, 2002).
The following SLO’s attend to the editing process: Revise Content (4.2.2), Enhance
Legibility (4.2.3), Enhance Artistry (4.2.4), Enhance Presentation (4.2.5), Grammar and
Usage (4.3.1), Spelling (4.3.2), and Capitalization and Punctuation (4.3.3). The final three
SLO’s of this GLO are interesting to this study as they all attend to elements of orality.
They include:
Share Ideas and Information (4.4.1): Demonstrate confidence and flexibility in
meeting audience needs when presenting ideas and information; adjust presentation
plan and pace according to purpose, topic, and audience feedback.
140 Effective Oral and Visual Communication (4.4.2): Select and adjust appropriate
voice and visual production factors that take into account audience knowledge,
attitudes, and response.
Attentive Listening and Viewing (4.4.3): Demonstrate critical listening and viewing
behaviours to make inferences about presentations.
Specific Learning Outcome 4.4.1 through 4.4.3 all embed some level of criticality and the recognition of effective communication that is relative to audience. Key to these SLOs are their emphasis upon a more reflexive consideration of how to communicate effectively relative to others. These are interesting outcomes as they connect to what the audience experiences but are not representative of dialogic learning. What differentiates these orality-based specific outcomes from dialogues are that they are pre-planned, prepared presentations that do not fit into a dialogical model because dialogue entails an immersion into temporality (Freire, 1970). They are, however, skills that are important for the dialogic process as they provide students with practice and metacognitive considerations that can prepare them for dialogues and provide teachers and students with opportunities for feedback that informs the communication process that can itself become a dialogical opportunity.
Some elements worth considering in the evaluation of these outcomes are the terms confidence, flexibility, and appropriate which I argue are relative and predominantly determined by the teachers. Thus, the expectations of what is deemed confident, flexible, and appropriate may become top-down expectations that may not create the equal teacher- student balance critical pedagogues assert is important to critical literacy. Additionally,
141 exemplifying confidence is subjective. In the context of English language arts, this artistry often includes elements such as articulation, volume, word choice, control of language, emphasis, and body language. However, confidence is highly influenced by the level of comfort and safety that a student feels in their surroundings, their overall sense of knowledge of the content, and their comfort with the orality of the language. This raises ethical concerns for educators including how to determine if the classroom is a
“comfortable” or “safe” space, as well as how to create an environment that provides the necessary conditions for students to feel confident in front of their peers.
General Learning Outcome 5: Celebrate and build community
This general outcome connects to the purposes of dialogic learning including the ability to Cooperate with Others (5.1.1): Use language to demonstrate flexibility in working with others; encourage differing viewpoints to extend breadth and depth of individual and group thought. Key is the focus on flexibility in working with others and encouraging different viewpoints. This appears very similar to collaboration grounded in the recognition of multiple perspectives but nonetheless coming to a mutual agreement.
Other SLOs include Work in Groups (5.1.2), Evaluate Group Process (5.1.4), Share and
Compare Responses (5.2.1), and Relate Texts to Culture (5.2.2).
Of particular note are the following two outcomes:
Use Language to Show Respect (5.1.3): Recognize how language choice, use, tone,
and register may sustain or counter exploitative or discriminatory situations.
142 Appreciate Diversity (5.2.3): Analyze ways in which languages and texts reflect and
influence the values and behaviours of people and diverse communities.
It is interesting that the most direct SLO in this curriculum relative to ‘respect’ uses the terms exploitative and discriminatory, which are somewhat vague. In particular, the act of recognizing how these language elements may sustain or counter exploitative or discriminatory situations is fundamentally underwhelming as “recognizing” is an initial starting point but becomes complex when attempting to envision how a state of awareness is transformed into more ‘respectful’ choices. This SLO may place increased responsibility on the teacher to ultimately determine how to counter these situations. At the very least, the social justice-oriented language of this SLO may provide a good initial starting point to opening up discourses around respect. The last SLO, Appreciate Diversity (5.2.3), allows for elements of the Freebody and Luke (1990) model to be envisioned, most notably the pragmatic competence of recognizing the cultural and social functions of texts.
The existing Manitoba ELA curriculum’s specific outcomes collectively support foundations of critical literacy. Some of these elements include: exploring multiple viewpoints and diverse texts, expressing stance and ideas, supporting reflexivity, considering challenging ideas, recognizing the power and role of effective communication, considering previous knowledge and beliefs and their strengths and limitations, critical analysis, inquiry-based learning that is student centered, collaborative learning models and projects, and supporting flexible, appropriate, diverse, and respectful learning. Among these SLOs are also opportunities for dialogic learning experiences. Some of the moral and ethical considerations that these outcomes raise – and will be further addressed in a subsequent part of this philosophical inquiry – include concerns related to teacher
143 authority, bias, possible indoctrination, conflictual discussions and topics, and creating respectful classroom environments.
The Proposed Curriculum
An updated Manitoba ELA Curriculum entitled English Language Arts Curriculum,
Framework: A Living Document was introduced in October 2019. Much of this initial framework is grounded in Freebody and Luke’s four resources model of reading (1990) that posits the four reader “roles” of code breaker (coding competence), meaning maker
(semantic competence), text user (pragmatic competence) and text critic (critical competence). The English Language Arts Curriculum Framework: A Living Document
(Government of Manitoba, 2019) does not currently include grade band descriptors beyond
Grade 8. However, more details of the developing high school Manitoba ELA curriculum can be found in the Draft English Language Arts Document to Support Initial
Implementation (Government of Manitoba, 2017a).
This draft framework defines competent literacy learners, which includes the capacity for:
deep and multi-faceted ways of knowing, doing, and being
representative of the ways in which knowledge is held, passed on, worked with, and
created in the world
owned by the learner as a transferable tool for problem solving and decision making
changeable over time to meet the needs of particular contexts (Government of
Manitoba, 2017a, p. 8).
144 Manitoba Education and Training’s design of the curriculum uses the following graphic as an outline of the conceptual framework:
Figure 3: ELA Conceptual Framework. From Government of Manitoba. (October 2019). The English Language Arts Conceptual Framework.
145 It additionally notes that students:
may be in a different language or be representative of different values, beliefs, and
cultures than the dominant school context. The English language arts curriculum
supports these learners in building upon and developing their competencies, and
specifically working on those competencies that are specific for success in school
and academic literacies. (Government of Manitoba, 2017a, p. 8)
On the topic of context, the draft framework states:
[L]earning is a process of developing understanding through problem solving and
critical reflection . . . learning is most effective and efficient when learners are
engaged in learning by doing. Pedagogical designs that embody this [contructivist]
perspective make use of learning scenarios, problems, incidents, stories and cases
that are authentic (i.e., that reflect real life situations), to situate and anchor all
learning experiences. (Government of Manitoba, 2017a, p. 9)
This quote was selected by the province from The Missing Link in Promoting Quality
Education: Exploring the Role of Pedagogical Design in Promoting Quality in Teaching and Learning by Som Naidu. This was presented as the keynote address at the 22nd World
Conference of the International Council of Distance Education in association with the
Brazilian Association for Distance Education in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, September 3–6,
2006. This quote is a significant foundation of the initial implementation and was selected from a paper that examines the use of scenario-based learning through a Master of Arts in
Teacher Education (international) Program. This initial curriculum document also encourages “deep and flexible learning” that “can help students grasp the important disciplinary ideas that are situated at the core of a particular focus or context. Exploring
146 ideas individual and with others helps students connect what they are learning to lived experiences outside of school. Deep and flexible thinking also encourages self-reflection and goal setting” (2017a, p.10).
Under the subheading The Practice of Using Language as Power and Agency, the new ELA framework (Government of Manitoba, 2019) encourages examining power and agency. It states:
In order for learners to be active citizens, they need opportunities to use language
that reflects their identities and enables them to advocate for themselves, their
communities, and the environment. Such opportunities would include examining
and interrogating information from multiple sources, recognizing bias, and finding
inaccuracies in the information they gather.
When learners practise using language as power and agency, they understand that
all texts represent a particular way of thinking and that language can privilege some
voices while silencing others. This understanding encourages them to question,
interrogate, and reimagine meaningful texts. Learners would ask the following:
How does what I hear, read, and view influence what I think?
How do I use language to influence others when I write, represent, and speak?
How do I decide what and whose stories to tell? (Government of Manitoba,
2019, pp. 42–43).
Language as Power and Agency
The organizational design of the draft curriculum framework (Government of
Manitoba, 2017a) and current living framework (Government of Manitoba, 2019) include
147 the ideas, practices, elements, grade band descriptors, and sample observable behaviours.
The new framework states:
Effective use of language as power and agency includes the following Elements:
recognize and analyze inequities, viewpoints, and bias in texts and ideas
investigate complex moral and ethical issues and conflicts
contemplate the actions that can be taken, consider alternative viewpoints,
and contribute other perspectives. (Government of Manitoba, 2019, p. 43)
The Language as Power and Agency band descriptors in the draft framework outline different outcomes relative to the grade of study. The Grades 9 to 12 band descriptors note that:
Learners are examining and combining multiple factors in order to interrogate and
challenge a wide range of texts, sets of texts, and own texts (e.g., creator’s lens,
point of view, motivation, interest, context, methods/approaches, rhetoric choices,
privileged ideas/information, silences, cultural and symbolic resources,
communication platforms/modes/vehicles)
Learners are using various processes to examine how texts (including their own)
might influence, define, and transmit cultural and societal values, ideologies,
beliefs, and identities or be influenced by these (E.g., taking on dominant,
oppositional, and alternative positions, analyzing text from different perspectives
and lenses, reimagining/recreating texts from other standpoints or cultural/social
contexts)
148
Learners are navigating difficult, contentious, and complex issues considering
various viewpoints, solutions, conclusions, claims, and arguments. (Government of
Manitoba, 2017a, para. 1–3).
This band descriptor upholds the tenets of critical literacy. The use of the word interrogate mirrors Freebody and Luke (1990) text critic role and the recognition that texts are not neutral. It also aligns to Lewison, Flint, and Van Sluys’ (2002) dimensions of disrupting the commonplace and interrogating multiple viewpoints. Terms like “privileged ideas/information, silences” may also be recognized as exploring marginalized communities and the exploration of redistributive and recognitive social justice (Fraser,
1997), and thus the possible sociopolitical dimensions of literacy (Phelps, 2010). This comparative process also upholds the exploration of asymmetries of privilege and power
(McLaren, 1988) through a multitude of texts, and thus supports opportunities to read from a comparative and potentially resistant perspective (Behrman, 2006). Additionally, the process that ELA learners follow in “navigating difficult, contentious, and complex issues” supports Freire’s dialogic literacy process with the belief that literacy practices can raise individual consciousness of structural inequalities.
Of note, the new ELA framework (Government of Manitoba, 2019) states that learners “respectfully listen to the opinions of others, ask questions of one another’s opinions, and ask probing questions, in ways that are appropriate and relevant to context”
(p. 97) and that “they work at paraphrasing and building on others’ ideas and using productive language to disagree” (p. 97). Both of the outcomes certainly highlight some consideration of the dialogic complexity that can arise when exploring challenging social
149 issues and moral dilemmas. This curriculum also notes that they will “work together to propose to take action and to take action in different ways” (Government of Manitoba,
2019, p. 98) which suggests a student-oriented, action-based critical literacy ends. English
Language Arts Curriculum Framework: A Living Document (2019) also notes that
“Learners may show in many other ways how they collaborate to investigate challenging social issues, moral dilemmas, and possibilities for social justice” (p. 98). This document culminates in an exploration of moral and social issues related to critical literacy, particularly given its attention to action-based social justice ends. There is also an embedded emphasis on listening respectfully and considering “productive language to disagree” (Government of Manitoba, 2019, p. 97), hinting at the nature of dialogic conflict.
Dialogue and Conflict
To understand the role of dialogue in the context of the current and future-state
Manitoba English language arts curriculum, clarification about dialogical conflict in relation to conflictual issues is required.
Burbules (2000) states that dialogue is an opportunity for political, pedagogical and philosophical interests to merge. However, he additionally suggests that there are six dominant traditions with differing viewpoints of dialogue within education that encompass liberal, feminist, Platonic, hermeneutic, critical, and postliberal views. I believe that this differentiation is an important because it conveys the immense range of pedagogical purposes that dialogue possesses. It also points to the range of values embedded in each of these purposes relative to its historical and philosophical frameworks. The purpose of this list is therefore not to exhaust the research foundations of this study but to locate what I
150 would constitute as ‘critical literacy dialogues’ within the larger discourse of dialogic learning. These six dominant traditions include:
1) Liberal Tradition: This includes the work of Dewey and Barber that is grounded in
dialogue for a deliberative democracy. The purpose is to ensure that students can
fully participate in democratic deliberation. This is countered by Benhabib (1989)
who notes that women, nonwhite peoples, and nonpropertied males may not have
the same access to deliberation, and thus this view of liberal dialogue is in fact
exclusionary.
2) Feminist Tradition: As noted in Chapter 2, the work care ethicists like Deborah
Tannen, Carol Gilligan, and Nel Noddings highlights “a linkage between a
competitive, adversarial approach to public or private disagreements and the
stereotypical norms of masculine behavior, and the association of “dialogue” with
the more open, receptive, inclusive spirit of women’s values” (Burbules, 2000, p.
253).
3) Platonic Tradition: This includes the Socratic method of questioning with an
emphasis upon “drawing forth latent, unformed understandings and facilitating the
discovery of truths by the learner for himself or herself” (Burbules, 2000, p. 253).
4) Hermeneutic Tradition: This emphasizes a relational question and answer approach
which directly contrasts the Platonic objectivist view of dialogue, which “rested
upon a view of knowledge as absolute, unchanging, and humanly attainable through
recollection (Burbules, 2000, p. 254). Burbules points out that critics of the
hermeneutic view of dialogue “question its limited capacity for critique and for
engaging issues of power and inequality that stand outside the dialogical relation;
151 these contexts need to be problematized in terms that go beyond their impact on
interpersonal understanding” (Burbules, 2000, p. 254).
5) Critical Tradition: This is prominent in the works of Paulo Freire, Henry Giroux,
Peter McLaren, and Ira Shor. Burbules highlights that “Freirean dialogue is
regarded as a practice with intrinsic critical and emancipatory potential; but many
authors, notably some feminists, do not find space within it for critique and
emancipation on their terms” (Burbules, 2000, p. 255)
6) Postliberal Tradition: This includes the work of Jürgen Habermas in which a
“grounding of truth and value claims lies in the uncoerced consensus that such
deliberations can achieve—including, significantly, critical reflection on the
conditions under which that agreement is obtained” (Burbules, 2000, p. 255). Seyla
Benhabib criticizes this view as it “assumes a commonality in modes of
communication and a kind of impersonality toward the way in which participants in
deliberation are identified. Benhabib notes instead a “interactive universalism” that
“acknowledges the plurality of modes of being human, and differences among
humans, without endorsing all these pluralities and differences as morally and
politically valid” (Burbules, 2000, pp. 255–256). Benhabib suggests that interactive
universalism recognizes embodiment, situatedness, and differences of our lived
experiences and identities and the beginning point of praxis towards political
transformation (Burbules, 2000). However, this model has been challenged as “a
kind of false seduction into conformity” where, for critics like Ellsworth, “the
response is to resist the “good behavior” that is made a condition of participation in
152 favor of what Anderson calls “performative subversion,” pointedly refusing to
valorize such conditions” (Burbules, 2000, p. 256)
While distinct, these individual viewpoints share three important similarities:
They all place primary emphasis on dialogue as the adjudicative basis for social and
political discussion and disagreement. They all privilege dialogue as the basis for
arriving at valid intersubjective understanding or knowledge. And they all, in the
educational domain, recommend dialogue as the mode of pedagogical engagement
best able to promote learning, autonomy, and an understanding of one’s self in
relation to others. (Burbules, 2000, pp. 256–257)
In the case of this study, critical literacy most closely aligns with the critical tradition. In
The Moral Dimensions of Teaching: Language, Power, and Culture in the Classroom,
Buzzelli and Johnston (2002) explain that critical pedagogues “believe that education is first and foremost about power and power relations” (p. 55) while they insist that “teaching in educational contexts is fundamentally concerned with moral relations, not with power”
(p. 56) and that it “logically implies that power relations are themselves profoundly moral”
(p. 56). The recursive nature of morality and power are therefore shaped by the critical literacy practitioner’s own stance and, as Burbules (2000) warns, “modes of dialogue that put the greatest emphasis on criticality and inclusivity may also be the most subtly co- opting and normalizing. Such a recognition unsettles critical pedagogies of all sorts, whether feminist or Freirean, rationalist or deconstructionist” (p. 271). The complexity of these different dialogic traditions further emphasize the care and attention that critical literacy proponents must pay to their own pedagogical philosophies of dialogue and critical capacities. In this sense, even the most ‘critical’ critical literacy proponent may be
153 incapable of identifying their own inability to be subtly co-opted themselves, especially relative to their own personal stance and their role within the classroom. This is further complicated by the examination of particularly conflictual and controversial issues in the classroom.
Defining Conflictual and Controversial Issues
The fundamental purpose of critical dialogues is the exploration of conflictual and controversial issues. Hess (2009) categorized two types of controversial political issues: settled issues and unsettled issues. Settled issues include topic like bullying or racism, where teachers believe there is one fundamentally acceptable answer. Unsettled issues include topics like abortion and the death penalty, where varying public opinion is widely divided and teachers recognize the legitimacy of differing viewpoints. Hess (2001, 2009) argues that unsettled issues are the best topics for discussion because they provide students with the opportunity to take a legitimate stance on either side of an issue. Hess (2009) also argues that schools are the best environment to help youth learn how to engage in discussions wisely.
Hess’ position, that discussing controversial political issues can help to support democratic values, learn content knowledge, and support political and civic engagement, is not a new conceptualization. In 1847, John Milton stated, “Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making” (1847, paragraph 866). The importance of disagreements, arguing, debating, and wrestling with ideas is foundational to learning. The complexity lies in part in discerning where ideas ultimately rest, in particular, for whom they are upheld or maintained. This is of particular interest to those working within critical
154 literacy because of the intent on unearthing hegemonies of power that may not be easily apparent.
In Hegemony, resistance, and the paradox of educational reform, Henry Giroux
(1981) describes hegemony as an uncritical approval of certain ideologies to sustain particular dominant groups (Giroux, 1981). Giroux differentiates the concept of hegemony, as having two meanings: as a civil process where a dominant class exercises moral and intellectual leadership over allied classes and where the dominant class controls mass media and educational systems to establish its views as universal (Giroux, 1981). Thus the dominant class applies “political, moral, and intellectual leadership to shape and incorporate the “taken-for-granted” views, needs, and concerns of subordinate groups. In doing so, the dominant class not only attempts to influence the interest and needs of such groups, but also contains radical opportunities by placing limits on oppositional discourse and practice” (Giroux, 1981, p. 17). He additionally notes, “If theories of social and cultural reproduction exclude from their problematics the issue of conflict and consciousness, theories of resistance make this issue the starting point for a critical study of the relationship between schooling and capitalist society” (p. 12). In this sense, to promote curricula that embodies and supports criticality in the classroom, some measure of real conflict is likely required.
In fact, it could be argued that conflict is fundamental to teaching. Classroom teachers regularly face various forms of academic and behavioral resistance related to punctuality, focus, work ethic, or content-related issues such as comprehension and refinement. The expectations that teachers place upon their students can by their very nature lead to some element of conflict, such as mere frustration. Kennedy and Pronin
155 (2008) maintain that one reason for escalating conflict within our classrooms can also be due in part to perceptions of bias, where individuals respond to conflict as either fundamentally competitive or cooperative behaviour. They explain:
a common perceptual tendency (involving our inclination to impute bias to those
who see things differently from us) leads us to take competitive approaches toward
those with whom we disagree—approaches that escalate conflict rather than
encourage its resolution. Those approaches in turn prompt others to see us as
biased, thereby prompting them to respond in conflictual ways, as the bias-
perception conflict spiral continues. (p. 845)
Hence Kennedy and Pronin (2008) highlight that the more disagreement individuals have with each other, the more bias they perceive in one another, and their actions become more conflictual. This explains why some conflictual disagreements between teachers and students, as well as those between students themselves, can become increasingly heated. It also emphasizes the need for teachers to take the necessary steps to recognize their roles as mentors and educators and remain above the fray.
Kennedy and Pronin (2008) additionally found that assumptions of bias amongst discussants is higher when disagreements naturally arise, and that individuals tend to act more aggressively based upon their assumption of bias, assumptions that can be held simply because another person possesses a different view. They conclude that “participants performed a quick assessment of their adversaries to determine how biased they were and then, based on that assessment, chose to respond with a competitive and conflict-escalating approach or a cooperative and deescalating approach” (2008, p. 271). I would argue that these are also the scenarios in which teachers have the most control of the conversation and
156 can exercise the option of interjecting or stopping the discussion, especially if it has become heated or counterproductive. This becomes the teacher’s ethical responsibility:
If the teacher will not act to protect students from gratuitous insult inside the
classroom, those left unprotected are denied educational opportunity on fair terms.
They are constrained from participating freely in the give and take of academic
discussion by the looming threat of verbal abuse from their peers, and when the
abuse occurs, they cannot honorably withdraw from a humiliating situation without
sacrificing their education. (Callan 2011, p. 6)
Not all dialogues become heated, but they can escalate quickly and it is difficult for educators to predict the direction dialogue may take. Thus the innate nature of conflict in the classroom has led some provincial curriculum developers to consider developing additional guidelines to assist teachers as they navigate these conflicts in their classrooms.
Conflictual Dialogues in Curricula
Increasingly, Canadian curricula relies on a variety of documents to address the presence of controversial issues in education settings. Each province includes its own perspective on controversial issues and supports for teachers addressing these issues in their respective areas of pedagogy.
Manitoba. No document currently exists within the ELA curriculum that specifically or comprehensively addresses conflict or conflictual issues in the classroom.
The only document that examines controversial issues or topics in the classroom within the province of Manitoba is specific to teachers in the Senior 2 (Grade 10) Social Studies course Geographic Issues of the 21st Century (Government of Manitoba, 2006). The
Manitoba Education and Training website has a Blackline Masters (BLM) document
157 entitled Dealing with Controversial Issues (n.d). This support document for Manitoba
Social Studies educators highlights some considerations for educators who examine controversial issues in the classroom. It begins by defining a controversial issue as “one which results in dispute and disagreement due to a difference of opinion” (Government of
Manitoba, n.d., p. 1) and that “As citizens of a democracy, students will often be confronted with issues that generate a diversity of viewpoints and require value clarification, negotiation, and compromise” (Government of Manitoba, n.d., p. 1). The document also notes that “Dealing with controversial issues in class may become highly emotional, particularly if they involve values, beliefs and ethical principles” (Government of Manitoba, n.d., p. 1).
This document attempts to clarify some elements of the process of examining conflictual topics, focusing on what to do when controversy arises, how to prepare for these discussions in advance, how to gather information, present viewpoints, and debrief. While the various points outlined for teachers consider many important elements before, during, and after the discussion process, there are some points that do raise important philosophical and ethical concerns.
Dealing with Controversial Issues (Government of Manitoba, n.d.) encourages teachers to note the following when controversies arise:
• Clarify the nature of the conflict and the potential implications.
• Plan how to deal with discussion and debate of the issue.
• Be sensitive to the students and the community.
• Determine if any student or family will be personally affected.
• Discuss the issue and planned strategies with a colleague or the principal.
158 • Ensure that information is available to support all sides of the argument.
• Avoid taking sides, remain neutral and objective (n.d., p.1)
One point of concern is the teacher’s capacity to “determine if any student or family will be personally affected” (Government of Manitoba, n.d, p. 1) This assumes that the teacher has sufficient knowledge of the students and their respective family, community, beliefs systems, etc. More importantly, the document does not provide teachers with guidance if they do in fact determine that one of these stakeholders will be affected. Is the teacher to discuss it with the student in advance? Should they contact the family? Should they consider an alternative issue? This document begins to highlight common issues across the curricula documents on this topic: they raise important questions for the teacher to consider, but do not provide helpful advice if a concern is detected.
Another point of concern is the recommendation that teachers “avoid taking sides, remain neutral and objective” (Government of Manitoba, n.d., p. 1). As previously examined, teachers’ notions of neutrality vary (Applebaum, 2003; Hess, 2009; Norman,
1975) and can have varying results. It is also an overly simplified direction that teachers remain neutral especially in the case that students directly ask them to share their own personal positions. This raises what I deem to be another important philosophical concern: should teachers remain neutral? In the section entitled Discussion of Controversial Issues
(n.d.) it states that teachers should:
• Ensure students understand the issue and can restate it in their own words.
• Assist students in finding reliable information from a variety of sources.
159 • Assist students in making the distinction between fact and opinion and
between informed opinion and bias.
• Help students classify information into appropriate categories.
• Acknowledge that there may be many and diverse views on the issue.
• Listen to each view and respect the student’s right to voice it without
interruption.
• Allow time for all views to be presented fairly, questioned, and discussed.
(pp.1–2)
A major concern with the point that teachers should allow time for all views to be presented fairly, questioned, and discussed is student safety and comfort in the classroom. Teachers act as the mediators, and students expect them to interject when necessary. Are there times when a teacher should silence a student’s speech? Are there some views that are simply too offensive to be adequately considered and presented?
This document raises many important ethical questions for teachers to consider but perhaps what is most concerning is that it may create a false sense of security for teachers.
Certainly, it raises important considerations but it does not truly address teachers’ options or provide alternatives, suggestions, or research to support pedagogical approaches to dealing with the ethical and moral dimensions of addressing conflictual topics in the classroom. While this document is intended for a different course, it provides some insight into province’s conceptualization of how teachers should comport themselves within classroom settings.
Currently, no Winnipeg School Division documents outline or clarify the role of educators dealing with conflictual issues or topics. In Ontario, the Toronto District School
160 Board (TDSB) produced a document entitled Oh No, Not Another Controversy: Dealing with the Inevitable Sensitive and Controversial Issues in the Life of a School System
(Gershon & Laskin, 2016). This document examined the board’s position on how teachers can deal with controversial issues, communication, and planning. This document has however since been removed from the TDSB website. The Toronto District School Board has since released a document entitled Handling Concerns About Learning Resources and
Controversial Issues (Toronto District School Board, 2009). This document notes the procedures that are to be followed regarding the withdrawal of particular materials perceived as controversial from the classroom. This document states, “Democracy supports discussion and advocacy on controversial issues. Controversial issues include political conflicts in the various parts of the world. Individuals and groups have the right to participate in advocacy activities on controversial issues as long as they respect the law and human rights” (p. 3). This document very clearly supports teachers’ desire to teach controversial issues and provides additional assistance to administrators who may deal with ensuing concerns in their prospective schools.
British Columbia. In a document entitled Introduction to Social Studies, the
British Columbia Ministry of Education (Government of British Columbia, 2015) discusses the redesigned Social Studies curriculum. Within it, under a subsection entitled Important
Considerations, it provides teachers with suggestions for creating a positive classroom climate. One suggestion includes: “Allow class members sufficient time and opportunities to become comfortable with each other before engaging in group discussion. It is important that the classroom climate encourage students to relate to one another in positive, respectful, and supportive ways. Be prepared to facilitate any potentially controversial
161 discussions” (2015, p 3). It also recommends that teachers “Establish clear ground rules for class discussions that demonstrate respect for privacy, for diversity, and for the expression of differing viewpoints” (2015, p. 3). The document also warns that some topics may evoke an emotional response from individual students and, when concern arises, that teachers should inform an administrator or counsellor and ensure that students know how to access help and support (2015, p. 3)
On the topic of controversial topics, a guide entitled iMinds: A Health Literacy
Resource for Grade 6 ELA Health and Career Education (Government of British
Columbia, 2011) developed by the Centre for Addictions Research of BC, states:
The role of a teacher is not to provide answers—it is to create a context of inquiry.
Since all questions and comments can be heard, discussed and explored in light of
evidence, even students who go for shock value will soon learn that their ideas are
simply that—ideas. By validating all students’ inquiries and providing them with
sources of information, facilitators encourage young people to become active
thinking beings. (p. 3)
Some of the tips for teachers include supporting a non-hostile environment, encouraging but not forcing participation, guiding discussion, and allowing for silence and disagreement. One of the more interesting points in this document is its position on neutrality, advising teachers to “Stay neutral and acknowledge all contributions in an unbiased but questioning manner. By showing respect to all students regardless of their opinions, you encourage them to do the same” (p. 3). It is valuable to note that part of the rationale for being unbiased is to demonstrate respect to students. This coincides with
162 Hess’ (2009) research which suggests that neutrality can indicate that a teacher “values fairness and models respect for competing points of view” (p. 191).
Alberta. As part of the Western Canadian Protocol, the Alberta government has developed a more comprehensive approach to addressing the topic of controversial issues in the classroom. In the document entitled Senior High School English Language Arts
Guide to Implementation (Government of Alberta, 2003), there is a section that specifically explores the topic of controversial issues, and notes that it is “from SightLines 10 Teacher
Guide, Pearson Education Canada, 2000”. The document supports teachers examining controversial topics in the classroom and states that being “attuned to what might be considered sensitive means that teachers must be cognizant of the “tenor of the times.”
(Government of Alberta, 2003, p. 104). It examines how teachers select their resources while taking into consideration their students’ backgrounds and experiences; it suggests the need for a clear pedagogical rationale for the topic, age and level appropriateness, the importance of a respectful and safe classroom environment, and value of providing relevant background to support the examination of the chosen topic. On the topic of conflictual dialogues, the Alberta curriculum also notes:
Recognize that personal and religious beliefs may cause individuals or groups to
object to texts or discussions of some topics. Talking with community residents and
the school administration, as well as other teachers, can help to determine what
areas are likely to be sensitive. This does not mean you should not use the text in
question, but you need to be aware of how carefully to handle issues with students
and the community. (Government of Alberta, 2003, p. 105)
163 The directive from the Alberta government to seek support and guidance from professional peers is certainly beneficial given that other professionals within the field are often excellent sources because of their direct experience in the field. On the other hand, it does not imply that they may necessarily know what is best. It also can become increasingly complicated for teachers if each stakeholder has a differing position. Ultimately, it is up to the teacher to make the final decision of how to proceed. Other unique elements of this curriculum are the manner in which it addresses the need for teachers to themselves be comfortable with the topic as well as offering a comment on tone:
The tone teachers use in talking about a controversial topic conveys their respect
and attitude about it and any people who may be connected with it. It is advisable to
acknowledge the controversial issue, in order to make it easier for students to ask
questions and discuss the issue in a mature way. However, it is not necessary to
draw undue attention; for example, reading aloud a passage including profane
language, which will possibly make students feel uncomfortable. It is useful to talk
about profanities and other sensitive aspects of texts, why they are included, and
how the author uses them effectively, but unnecessary to verbalize the exact words.
(Government of Alberta, 2003, p. 106)
This suggestion is quite helpful for teachers in recognizing that there is a space to engage in controversial issues, although how far teachers should pursue a topic may vary greatly from teacher to teacher, and classroom to classroom. For example, while it is common for students highly-engaged in controversial discussions to show a desire to continue discussing it, this alone does not imply that everyone is comfortable doing so. This is
164 because the manner in which the group participates is not always dictated by what is best for all, but what is best for most.
Lastly, the Alberta curriculum notes that “Controversial issues that have been anticipated by the teacher, and those that may arise incidentally during instruction, should be used by the teacher to promote critical inquiry and/or to teach thinking skills”
(Government of Alberta, 2003, p. 82). It additionally notes that “The school plays a supportive role to parents in the areas of values and moral development and shall handle parental decisions in regard to controversial issues with respect and sensitivity”
(Government of Alberta, 2003, p. 82). This is an essential statement for a few reasons.
Firstly, there is a direct acknowledgement that schools are part of students’ moral development. Secondly, it states that parents’ concerns will be acknowledged and handled in an ethical manner. This is important because it highlights parents’ important position in their children’s learning and acknowledges that they have a right to inquire about what their children are learning. The note that issues will be addressed “with respect and sensitivity” also implies a level of care that is of a particularly sensitive nature and further implies that dialogues, while difficult, are important, and that each concern will be appropriately acknowledged.
Saskatchewan. The Saskatchewan ELA curriculum notes that teachers should
“Apply rules for co-operative or whole class debate and discussion on controversial issues”
(Government of Saskatchewan, 2008, p. 47). This is a beneficial recommendation to teachers as the classroom community sets its own policy for what its members determine to be appropriate rules, and empowers students to be part of the decision making process
165 around their learning. An interesting element of this curriculum is on the topic of
Developing Social Responsibility. It states:
Social responsibility is how people positively contribute to their physical, social,
and cultural environments. It requires the ability to participate with others in
accomplishing shared or common goals. This competency is achieved through using
moral reasoning processes, engaging in communitarian thinking and dialogue, and
contributing to the well-being of others and the natural world. Socially responsible
learners contribute to their physical, social, and cultural environments. In English
language arts, students explore their social responsibility and work toward common
goals to improve the lives of others and the natural and constructed world.
(Government of Saskatchewan, 2008, p. 4)
This statement very much mirrors a Freirean position of creating a community of learning that is dialogic, respectful, and action-based, and recognizes culture as being central to learning. This statement is relative to ELA learning but could easily apply other of teaching and learning disciplines.
Conclusion
The current Manitoba English Language Arts curriculum and those of the broader membership that comprise the Western Canadian Protocol for Collaboration in Basic
Education provide sufficient opportunities for educators to implement and maintain critical literacy pedagogy in their classrooms. Every general outcome in the current curriculum allows for teachers to use their discretion when implementing texts and dialogic activities that support criticality, as well as social justice oriented learning and teaching, though not directly stated. The recently proposed ELA curriculum and the newly developing ELA
166 curriculum encourage teachers and students to examine moral dilemmas and ethical issues from a critical literacy standpoint with social justice aims. There is an emphasis upon creating and supporting learning communities that examine and interrogate texts from multiple sources. The examination and recognition of bias, focus on challenging a wide range of texts, as well as exploring how texts transmit cultural and societal and values, ideologies, and beliefs, and the process of questioning dominant positions, are clearly aligned to the foundations of critical literacy and its purposes. Relative to the previous
Manitoba Comprehensive ELA curriculum (Government of Manitoba, 2000), there are a few significant shifts of note in the proposed new curriculum. Firstly, its direct acknowledgement, analysis, and exploration of multiple texts as sources for interrogation are an outcome that is not articulated in the current curriculum. Secondly, it includes the articulation and acknowledgement of dominant positions as well as the ‘oppressed’, referred to as silences. There is also a direct reflexive element of how texts transmit values, identities and beliefs, all of which are not highlighted in the current ELA curriculum.
Lastly, and most important to this research study, is the new curriculum’s emphasis on examining difficult, contentious, and/or complex issues relative to critical literacy outcomes. Thus, while some current educators may be proponents of critical literacy praxis and/or examining conflictual issues of moral and ethical significance in the classroom, this newly proposed curriculum is much more insistent in its directive to explore these areas within the ELA classroom. This is a significant shift from the current curriculum and may therefore be a significant shift for many ELA educators as well.
Clearly, the role of dialogic learning will continue to remain crucial to exploring conflictual issues in the classroom and reaffirms the centrality of dialogue within critical
167 literacy learning and teaching. This continues to confirm the importance of dialogic learning but also raises possible ethical complexities of dialogic learning with critical literacy aims in the ELA classroom, particularly, as the curriculum notes, because of their conflictual nature. What becomes clear is that there are no current or proposed curriculum resources for current ELA educators that coincide with the current or proposed ELA curricula. For this reason, there would be value in providing ELA educators with some guidance throughout the implementation process regarding the potential complexities of examining issues dialogically from a critical literacy standpoint. In particular, dialogue is the adjudicative basis for social and political discussion and disagreement and allows for inter-subjective understanding, making it one of the best modes to promote learning and an understanding of self in relation to others (Burbules, 2000). The value of dialogic learning may be clearly recognized but the complexities of its implementation into curriculum, particularly as a process of critical literacy learning, must be more clearly outlined. Much of this complexity is notable, particularly when exploring the political dimensions of dialogic critical literacy learning and the complexities of conflict.
168 Chapter VII – The Pedagogy of Conflict
At its foundation, critical literacy supports pedagogical and socially just goals and is essential to citizen engagement within a democratic system. Critical literacy research supports the understanding that schools can reproduce existing power relations because they impart the hegemony in which they exist (Apple, 1982). Thus a key objective of critical literacy is, in part, the deconstruction of entrenched reproductive agendas (Giroux,
1988; McLaren, 1988). Critical literacy educators understand that their classrooms, schools, and curricula embed entrenched reproductive agendas and imbalances of power to varying degrees. In all classrooms, from traditional to radical classroom environments, power relations are inexorable. Challenging these entrenched power relations requires a language of possibility that allows students and teachers to question knowledge by problematizing the implications of school curricula (Freire, 1970). This language emphasizes open and honest dialogue where students have the capacity to articulate their thoughts and understanding as a process of transformation. The current Manitoba ELA curriculum allows for critical literacy aims, and the newly developed draft Manitoba ELA curriculum very explicitly argues for social justice-oriented aims. In particular, it calls for recognizing and analyzing inequities, viewpoints, examining bias, contemplating actions that can be taken, and considering and contributing different perspectives (Government of
Manitoba, 2017a). These intentions are therefore inevitably political, and while critical literacy advocates tout them as being socially just objectives, ongoing research has raised legitimate concerns, particularly around the discussion of politics.
The initial immersion of this philosophical inquiry into the moral dimensions of dialogic learning in the critical literacy classroom has come at a critical time in light of the
169 transformative political landscape of North America and global democracies. The discussion around how to discuss politics has been at the forefront of recent debates:
Donald Trump—a candidate with no prior political experience who had been
widely regarded as unelectable because of the many groups of people he had
offended—not only won the Republican primary but won the election. Millions
turned out across the country to protest his inauguration, cross-partisan hatred
surged, and the news cycle came to revolve around the president’s last tweet or
latest comment about nuclear war. (Lukianoff & Haidt, 2018, p. 12)
Televised incidents such as the president’s mocking of a disabled reporter, his comments about grabbing woman, and demeaning comments about the appearance of women continued to elicit increasing offence and attract the attention of the public, including our current students. Objectionable terms such as ‘horseface’, ‘fat’, and ‘ugly’ were among some of the terms that have been used (Shear & Sullivan, 2018) and has led many in political arenas to discuss their concern over the use of these words:
To say this is unbecoming of any man, let alone the POTUS, is a vast
understatement,” tweeted Representative Ryan A. Costello, a Pennsylvania
Republican who is retiring from Congress, referring to the president. “And to say
this enables teenage boys to feel they have a license to refer to girls with such
names is obvious. It’s all very embarrassing. (Shear & Sullivan, 2018, para. 8)
For all the issues and concerns that the 2016 US presidential election raised, it underscored an ongoing discourse around what the public considers (and will tolerate) as appropriate and ethical behavior of its political leaders.
170 In particular, ongoing ethical questions began to arise: What are kids learning from this? What might they be taking away from this language? Do they believe this language is acceptable? This is important relative to dialogical critical literacy learning because students bring their lived experiences into the classroom and this often includes soundbites that they overhear resonating within other external political arenas. Firstly, these statements have often been unpolished sentiments and off-hand comments that become fodder in the media and, in turn, become prominent stories and discussion points. So while there are political issues at the forefront, the core issues behind these statements may become secondary to the distracting nature of unethical, crude or inflammatory language. Secondly, if teachers push for the creation of politicized classrooms, such as those espoused by critical pedagogy communities, these classrooms will import all of these issues and complexities. Philosophically, there are ethical implications around which comments, issues, ideas, and statements teachers and students wish to include in the classroom and which they do not.
Educators and parents are presently engrossed in the topic of Donald Trump’s language and personal conduct, particularly because they are sometimes unsure of how to address this issue with their own children. Articles such as Psychology Today’s How To
Talk With Your Kids About President Trump's Behavior: Actionable tips for parents
(Beresin, 2017) and the CBC’s Tips for talking to your kids about Donald Trump's victory
(McGillivray, 2016) advance ongoing queries around the impact that this kind of language is having on students. On this topic, a study by Huang and Cornell (2019) found that following the presidential election, “students reported a higher prevalence of being bullied and were more likely to report observing that their peers were teased or put down because
171 of their race or ethnicity” (p. 76). It became virtually impossible as an English language arts teacher to avoid discussions about the president’s conduct, in part, because the unruly and visceral attacks were being broadcast instantly across social media platforms; students following the president’s Twitter account were aware of the latest comments and events as they emerged.
While there is a seemingly endless inventory of objectionable statements and behaviours by the current US president, it has led to a resurgence of debate about the standards of appropriate speech and political correctness. It has also challenged us to think about the manner in which language can polarize and divide citizens. During McAvoy and
Hess’s 2005 to 2009 longitudinal study on political polarization, they too witnessed a pronounced shift in the political landscape that began to “reflect the intertwined, and deeply troubling, trends of political polarization and increased vitriol in the public sphere”
(McAvoy & Hess, 2013, p. 15). What began to occur was an increased dissonance between voices and positions particularly around positions of identity.
Identity Politics
It is difficult in the context of this research study to examine the dimensions of critical literacy and dialogic learning with social justice without considering the area of identity politics. Identity politics can be defined as “political mobilization organized around group characteristics such as race, gender, and sexuality, as opposed to party, ideology, or pecuniary interest” (Rauch, 2017, para. 5). Bromley (1989) defines identity politics as
a loosely defined school of thought which tries to use poststructuralist insights on
the nature of subjectivity without losing the political commitment of Marxism. It is
an attempt to find for collective action a basis which doesn’t marginalize lived
172 experience, especially that of oppressed peoples, a basis which doesn't abstract
away the complexity and contradictions embedded in human subjectivity. (p. 208)
Social movements such as the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s transformed traditional notions about the role of politics and included “Ghandhian principles of civil disobedience; spiritual aspirations for personal and collective redemption drawn from the
Southern black church; ethical visions of moral responsibility and the possibilities of individual action inspired by European existentialism” (Kauffman, 2001, p. 25). This evolution of social movements additionally expanded to include psychological inequity in addition to the traditional focus on structural inequity (Kauffman, 2001). This is illustrated by the women organizers of the civil rights movement who later became leaders of the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s. Thus, changes to patriarchy had to come about through a transformation of the citizenry’s ways of thinking. The shift towards focusing on identity and empowerment are central to critical literacy and to identity politics. Critical literacy attempts to empower students to not simply recognize historically marginalized identities but also to become empowered to recognize them in themselves and reclaim their own power.
Identity politics has been recognized as a slippery (Lichterman, 1999) and complex
(Bernstein, 2005) term due in part to its attempts to connect our social experiences to poststructuralist subjectivity (Bromley, 1989). Bromley (1989) warns that “Any theory that attempts to catalyze movement for social change but ignores the question of how individuals come to feel commitment and to act on it is in trouble” (p. 208). Critical literacy research acknowledges the self as knower and values students’ lived experiences but the complexity of human subjectivity is such that the prospect of attempting to catalyze
173 a cohesive movement towards social action is immensely multifarious given the diversity of perception. In this sense, how do critical literacy practitioners ensure that they uphold the individual identities of students while simultaneously encouraging an action-based collective identity? Whose voices will come to the forefront and whose might be marginalized?
Herbert Marcuse, a member of the Frankfurt School, established the foundational tenets of critical theory. The Frankfurt School held three core assumptions: a) that Western democracies are full of inequities of economy, race, and class; (b) that their dominant ideology is seemingly normal and inevitable; and (c) critical theory acts to understand and ultimately change this status quo (Brookfield, 2014). Marcuse’s research led to an examination of dialogically-rich pedagogy to uphold diverse stances for the purposes of democracy (Brookfield, 2007). One of Marcuse’s (1965) conflictual positions was his notion of repressive tolerance:
Repressive tolerance ensures that adults believe they live in an open society
characterized by freedom of speech and expression, while in reality their freedom is
being constricted further and further. Due to the powerful influence of dominant
ideology, Marcuse mistrusts educators’ instinctive preference for presenting
students with a diversity of perspectives and then letting them make up their minds
which makes most sense to them. The logic of his argument is that students’
previous ideological conditioning will always predispose them to choose what for
them are common sense socially sanctioned understandings. The educator’s task,
indeed their responsibility, therefore, is to confront—even coerce—students into
174 engaging with troubling ideas that they would otherwise avoid. (Brookfield, 2007,
p. 558)
This emphasizes important considerations for critical literacy educators. Firstly, classrooms are spaces that value and attempt to uphold tolerance by the manner in which students and teachers attempt to enact sympathy for each other’s differing beliefs. This is highlighted, for example, by the proposed Manitoba ELA curriculum’s emphasis on contemplating and considering alternative viewpoints (Government of Manitoba, 2017a).
Simultaneously, classroom spaces recognize an inherent level of conflict and the need to embed some level of sympathy or respect for unavoidable differences. While the particular term of repressive tolerance carries an historical and phenomenological foundation of race and power, there is an innate repressive nature to classrooms. They are not truly open to any complete freedom of speech and expression; students and teachers must abide by rules that are essentially ‘socially sanctioned’. These include ethical sensitivities, moral consciousness, recognition of human rights and responsibilities, notions of political correctness, as well as the multitude of classroom, school, and divisional policies and rules.
Marcuse’s work also highlights an ethical dilemma that teachers may face because by “giving equal consideration to views that reinforce the interests of White supremacy, global capitalism and religious fundamentalism, teachers end up undercutting their own intention of developing students’ powers of critical thinking” (Brookfield, 2007, p. 559).
Marcuse’s insights stress the ethical balance of determining whose ideas are heard and valued and those that will be ignored or even silenced. This relates closely to social justice pedagogy’s objective of ensuring that those who are oppressed or silenced have a voice,
175 especially those who exist outside of the hegemonic political system. This can, however, raise ethical concerns for educators.
In particular, if a student argues a position that is perceived to represent the hegemonic political system, they may be challenged, an action that may not be ethically defensible. An ethical teacher would recognize this bias but only if they envision their primary role as a moral and ethical practice as opposed to a political practice. Campbell
(2013) perceptively notes that these kinds of social justice aims “position the teachers as a social critic, an activist, and an agent of sociopolitical change” (p. 217) and may distract
“teachers from examining their moral role as accountable professionals, individually responsible for their own ethical conduct in classrooms and schools, and collectively responsible for the ethics of their profession” (p. 217). Campbell’s position raises many important complexities when contemplating the role of the teacher. To what extent should teachers choose or determine the issues that are to be examined? To what extent should they lead and interject in the class dialogues? To what extent should they attempt to control these dialogues? And above all, to what extent should their own views influence student learning? This philosophical inquiry into the moral and ethical dimensions of critical literacy in ELA classroom highlights a number of complexities. The most prominent areas relative to dialogic critical literacy learning include the teacher’s notions of authority, partiality, and proximity. These three elements are interconnected and highlight important moral and ethical considerations teachers must consider amidst the varying positions and dialogues they will encounter in the classroom.
176 Authority
Critical literacy attempts to support and uphold a learning environment in which teachers and students are equals. In this sense, teachers facilitate a space where they do not highlight their roles as authorities and as the sole keepers of knowledge. Freire (1970) explains:
For the anti-dialogical banking educator, the question of content simply concerns
the program about which he will discourse to his students; and he answers his own
question, by organizing his own program. For the dialogical, problem-posing
teacher-student, the program content of education is neither a gift nor an
imposition—bits of information to be deposited in the students—but rather the
organized, systematized, and developed “re-presentation” to individuals of the
things about which they want to know more. (p. 93)
Thus to be true critical literacy educator, one must relinquish a sense of control and prescribed ends to ensure that the critical literacy learning process is authentic, organic, and valuable to students. Giroux and McLaren (1986) highlight that a level of equality is necessary:
replace pedagogical practices which emphasize disciplinary control and one-sided
character formation with practices that are based on emancipatory authority, ones
which enable students to engage in critical analysis and to make choices regarding
what interests and knowledge claims are most desirable and morally appropriate for
living in a just and democratic state. Equally important is the need for students to
engage in civic-minded action in order to remove the social and political constraints
177 that restrict the victims of this society from leading decent and humane lives. (p.
225)
The proposed Manitoba ELA curriculum emphasizes considering alternative viewpoints and different perspectives (Government of Manitoba, 2017a) but these may not necessarily elicit feelings of respect. The aspiration to create a classroom predicated on equality and respect is a noble pursuit but that it is not always easily attained because a teacher’s capacity to ‘control’ their classroom can be difficult and complex. Not all students will meet the desired level of respect that is expected of them. Interrupting, divisive or hateful comments, or even a negative or condescending tone towards classmates during dialogic learning may result in the need for the teacher to discipline the student. Discipline concerns in the classroom cause tremendous stress for teachers and classroom behavioural issues are commonly considered the most challenging aspects of the profession (Brekelmans,
Wubbels & van Tartwijk, 2005). This can also impact students negatively, especially when students become resistant to the teacher’s attempts to create and maintain control.
However, to imply that this is only the concern of ‘incompetent’ or inexperienced teachers is false and it has been found that this is an ongoing concern for both inexperienced and experienced teachers alike (Evertson & Weinstein, 2011).
In some cases, teachers who continually struggle with classroom control face increased likelihood of burn-out and may even leave the profession (Evertson & Weinstein,
2011). This is an important consideration around critical literacy dialogues because they require a level of control that is a careful balance between students maintaining a level of power and the teachers maintaining a level of power as well. This is because authority infers influence, which is ultimately a form of power (McClelland, 1970). If there is a
178 significant power imbalance in the classroom that is caused by a lack of respect and trust between the students and the teacher, then it seems doubtful that attempts for true critical literacy dialogues will be empowering for either or both parties. For this reason, teachers must first understand their own philosophies and practices of authority in the classroom and how they manifest themselves in their students’ learning.
Steutel and Spiecker (2010) also make the distinction between practical authority and theoretical authority: “A person who is said to be a practical authority is supposed to have authority over conduct, whereas a person who is considered a theoretical authority is expected to have authority over beliefs” (p. 325). Teachers in essence may hold one of both of these descriptions relative to their own notions of authority as well as those within the institutions they practice.
This discussion around varying conceptualizations of authority also highlights two opposing traditions: one that is authoritarian in nature and one that can be described as anti- authoritarian (Buzzelli & Johnston, 2001). The authoritarian nature implies that students are trained to make sacrifices for the common good (Spring in Buzzelli and Johnston,
2001). It has been argued that educators should strive for both since a teacher’s authority is enacted is a moral matter (Buzzelli & Johnston, 2001). This highlights yet another distinction between teachers in authority and teachers as authority (Peters, 1966). A teacher in authority is directing the class for the purpose of ensuring educational outcomes are being met. Conversely, the teacher as authority represents their “status as the possessor and transmitter of sanctioned forms of knowledge” (Buzzelli and Johnston, 2001, p. 874).
While the latter more closely parallels Freire’s concept of banking, where the teacher is the transmitter of knowledge, Foucault argues that they simply coexist where “legitimated
179 forms of knowledge and legitimated forms of power are essentially part of the same regulatory mechanism” (Buzzelli and Johnston, 2001, p. 875). In order to counter this, critical pedagogy attempts to suspend this mechanism by encouraging teachers to explicitly counteract the reproductive and oppressive nature of schooling (Freire, 1970; Giroux, 1983,
1988). However, the education structure of teachers as authority is entrenched in the history of schooling itself.
Traditionally, the teacher has the sole position of authority and power in the classroom and carries the most responsibility. I would argue that the level of responsibility that teachers assume for the wellbeing of all their students could halt their conceptual desire for critical dialogues because of their ethical responsibility to both their students and the profession. For example, if a teacher recognizes that they lack a level of control in their classroom but nonetheless chooses to engage students in a critical literacy dialogue around a conflictual issue, they must also assume ownership of the outcomes resulting from those dialogues. This is not to imply that all aspects of a student’s behaviour are the responsibility of the teacher, but that teachers have an ethical responsibility of gauging reflexively the potential fallout of complexities that will arise in that given space. By definition, this is essentially what classroom management entails. It is a recognition of the collective space and the role of the teacher to carefully navigate that space for the common good. In some cases, I would argue that acting in the common good might require an avoidance of conflictual topics entirely, especially if teachers believe that these dialogues are beyond the respective capacities of both student and teacher; avoiding truly critical dialogues may in fact be the right choice for some teachers. This also highlights a dilemma of critical literacy dialogues: they can be dangerous. Certainly, they have the capacity to be
180 empowering, engaging, emancipatory, and advocating for a socially just world. But, equally, they can also be overwhelming and intimidating. To argue that ‘good’ teachers should always strive for these kinds of dissonant dialogues in their classes no matter what is in itself unethical.
Critical pedagogues make a good point that there is an uphill battle because of the history of schooling where children have already learned to “play according to the rules of the game” and “learn to avoid giving linguistic form to a range of feelings which will be deemed inappropriate since the teacher is ultimately the arbiter of the acceptable and the permissible” (Conroy & Davis, 2000, p. 189). For this reason, teachers have a complex task before them: they must recognize the value of critical literacy dialogic learning relative to their own capacities as educators. Placing students at the forefront of learning and teaching is not always easy because of the corresponding variation of values, personalities, and experiences inherent to the classroom. In some cases, I argue that it is also plausible that an increased emphasis upon critical literacy classroom pedagogy may even increase more defensive teaching practices and resistance.
Resistance
In Contradictions of Control, McNeil (1986) refers to the process of defensive teaching as a method in which teachers choose “methods of presentation and evaluation that they hope will make their workload more efficient and create as little student resistance as possible” (p. 158). This is because defensive teaching constructs a dichotomous relationship between the teacher and the students and normalizes a monologic transfer of knowledge from one to the others that “reinforce[s] certainty, conformity, and technical control of knowledge and power” (Darder, Baltodano, & Torres, 2009, p. 11). This
181 approach is rooted in the teacher’s desire for classroom control and the effect of being
“burdened by an administration that expected them to enforce rules of discipline, but that rarely backed them on that enforcement. As a result, they [the teachers] wanted to avoid as many inefficient exchanges as possible in order to get though the day” (McNeil, 1986, pp.
159–160) and “masked their more complex personal knowledge of the topics because of their desire for classroom order and efficiency” (McNeil, 1986, p. 160). One way this is achieved is by distancing students’ identities from course content, which supports a dichotomy between students’ personal knowledge and that of the school.
The vulnerabilities within the patterns of control – including widespread student
cynicism toward oversimplifications, student rejection of facts that contradicted
their own information, and teacher alienation at having to apologize for assignments
in order to get students to cooperate – remained too hidden to be seen as
emancipatory possibilities. So long as they are hidden from participants, the cycle
of alienation and control will presumably persist…And with teachers, domination in
the classroom may also be interpreted as resistance to their own alienation and lack
of control within the larger institution. (McNeil, 1986, p. 190)
Therefore defensive teaching may emerge from a sense of fear or presumed lack of control. Pedagogically speaking, classroom control is considered an essential skill and variable of almost all teaching and thus part of a teacher’s professional identity. For this reason, teaching and learning that may threaten to destabilize this image of control will necessitate a variety of approaches on the part of teachers and may require withdrawal from the dissonance attributed to conflictual dialogues. Even when a teacher decides to engage
182 in critical literacy dialogues, they still have to navigate one of the most intricate elements of these critical dialogues: neutrality.
Neutrality
The topic of neutrality in relation to controversial or conflictual dialogues highlights a unique tension between the teacher as an individual and their professional role in the classroom. This is an important aspect of this study particularly because many of the curriculum documents around conflictual discussions have different approaches about the degree to which teachers should remain neutral. The discussion of neutrality did not surface in my analysis of the current Manitoba ELA Curriculum as it provided no clear and direct expectation of teachers. However, in the document entitled Dealing with Controversial
Issues within the Manitoba Social Studies Curriculum, it notes that teachers should “remain neutral and objective” (n.d., p. 1).
Firstly, the expectation of school divisions and education boards that teachers are committed to objectivity and neutrality in the classroom while being simultaneously tasked with the role of engaging in controversial and political issues is highly problematic. This obligation forces teachers to be the sole bearers and pedagogical gauges of what constitutes the most ethical position for student learning. For example, while the province of Manitoba may want teachers to remain neutral, controversial and conflictual issues are by their nature not neutral. Thus the paradox of simultaneously encouraging critical literacy and the exploration of moral and ethical issues essentially traps educators between what is right pedagogically for students and what may be right theoretically from the stance of the province. The ethical complexity of competing values is certainly not a new educational
183 concept but does highlight important considerations that educators who decide to engage in critical literacy dialogues must make.
Researchers who examine the moral life of teaching recognize the delicate balance that teachers strive for between their personal lives and their lives within the classroom.
Kincheloe (2008) raises an important consideration regarding teachers sharing personal positions on topics in the classroom:
The argument that any position opposing the actions of the dominant power
wielders represents an imposition of one’s views on somebody else is problematic.
It is tantamount to saying that one who admits her oppositional political sentiments
and makes them known to students is guilty of indoctrination, while one who hides
her consent to dominant power and the status quo it has produced from her students
is operating in an objective and neutral manner. (Kincheloe 2008, p. 11)
This becomes an issue of reflexivity and essentially becomes a question of whether or not a teacher can recognize their own knowing. While some educators make an active effort to remain neutral on conflictual topics, others may simply avoid particular issues in the first place (Wallace 2003). However, when educators choose to engage in conflictual topics understanding the various levels of neutrality is paramount.
Critical literacy practitioners agree that no curriculum is fundamentally neutral but the discussion of teacher neutrality remains ongoing. To begin, a neutral position may not model what a teacher is attempting to attain. Bigelow (1997) discusses his desire to teach students about global sweatshops and child labour in poor countries:
On the one hand, I had no desire to feign neutrality – to hide my conviction that
people here need to care about and to act in solidarity with workers around the
184 world in their struggles for better lives. To pretend that I was a mere dispenser of
information would be dishonest, but worse, it would imply that being a spectator is
an ethical response to injustice. It would model a stance of moral apathy. I wanted
students to know these issues were important to me, that I cared enough to do
something about them. On the other hand, I never want my social concerns to
suffocate student inquiry or to prevent students from thoughtfully considering
opposing views. I wanted to present the positions of transnational corporations
critically, but without caricature. (p. 115)
Bigelow (1997) highlights a key concern around neutrality, particularly that in staying on the sidelines of an issue, a teacher may unintentionally model the very kind of inaction that they are attempting to prevent. He also demonstrates the kind of reflexive thinking that ethical teachers must use when confronting social and political issues. Questioning the manner in which one is teaching and how personal stance impacts student learning is essential to a teacher’s role as an ethical professional.
The push for neutrality in schools may also simply be a way to avoid conflicts within communities and limit the risk that a teacher says something that students or officials deem conflictual and problematic. Remaining neutral not only lowers the teacher’s potential for professional conflict, but may be the most ‘ethical’ approach because students are insulated from a teacher’s personal values and beliefs. Neutrality may be less conflictual and potentially less burdensome for the educational system but erodes the opportunities for problematization, a pedagogical goal of critical literacy. Thus an alternative approach may be to find some sort of balance between sharing one’s stance and being neutral.
185 Achieving balance is not just difficult to maintain (Carrington & Troyna, 1988), it is not particularly helpful (Oulton et al, 2004) and almost impossible (Ashton & Watson,
1998). I concur with McAvoy and Hess (2013) who argue that the “balanced” approach of teaching both sides is problematic because it can “serve to increase polarization around arguments that can actually be resolved by empirical evidence” and “could reinforce the idea that empirical questions are matters of belief rather than evidence” (p. 39). ‘Balance’ requires teachers to work very carefully at essentially upholding a stance that is fundamentally inauthentic. As individuals, we hold positions on a variety of ideas and issues and it is unlikely that teacher will not encourage students to participate in conflictual dialogues for which they have no opinion. In fact, that is often the reason why ELA teachers choose certain topics with which they want to dialogically engage their students: they are issues that matter to them and that they feel could matter to students. As a teacher, there is also something very inauthentic about expecting my students to engage fully and passionately in a topic that I do not wish to engage in fully and passionately. I would also argue that my engagement contributes, in part, to the level of engagement students adopt. I can play devil’s advocate, introduce counter-arguments, and distribute a multitude of texts that examine multiple positions, but students will still want to know my personal position because we are all members of the same learning community.
Partiality. Critical literacy proponents generally advocate for the sharing of ideas and positions and the avoidance of neutrality. It has been argued that teachers should not remain neutral (Warnock, 1975), cannot remain neutral given the partisan nature of education (Norman, 1975), and that teachers should explicitly state their own positions
186 (Oulton et al, 2004). Warnock (1975) maintains that it is important for teachers to present and develop their own positions to their students:
Part of the point, ... is to teach them to judge fairly on the evidence, and to
understand the arguments both for and against the proposition. But part of the point
is also actually to get them to think about right and wrong, good and evil, to think,
that is to say, about morals. If this is accepted as part of their education, then they
must not be deprived of the spectacle of a teacher who holds, and clearly expresses,
moral views. (p. 170)
Whether or not to disclose personal beliefs can be described as the “disclosure dilemma”
(Hess, 2005). Teachers who choose to stay neutral can diminish trust amongst the group
(McCully, 2006). Ultimately, students usually support teacher disclosure so long as they do not perceive it as a manner of trying to advocate for a specific political view (Hess &
McAvoy, 2009). In their research, Hess and McAvoy (2009) found that teachers who shared their views did not necessarily ideologically influence their students, but the manner in which the teacher disclosed their position did impact the classroom learning:
if the students felt that the teacher was trying to influence the students to adopt her
views, then students were likely to move away from supporting disclosure. To
clarify, students were amiable to allowing teachers to share their views, and when
teachers did so, they changed students’ views on whether disclosure is acceptable,
with one important caveat: if they believed that the teacher wanted students to adopt
the same political views, then they became less supportive of disclosure. (Hess &
McAvoy, 2009, p. 105)
187 Their research also highlighted three possible concerns with teachers disclosing their views: Students may participate and speak less because they feel less responsibility in the discussion process, they may worry about their position relative to the teachers and may not disclose their true views, and that some will work harder to understand an issue if they don’t know the teacher’s stance. There are however varying levels of neutrality. Kelly
(1986) identifies four pedagogical stances: exclusive neutrality, exclusive partiality, neutral impartiality, and committed impartiality. With committed impartiality, teachers share their stances but simultaneously encourage students to critique them as well. It is important to note that in this case, stating one’s stance may lead to argumentativeness because “a view on a social issue involves taking an argumentative stance in relation to counter-views...In this sense one would expect the discourse of views to be an argumentative discourse”
(Billig, 1991, p. 171). Thus when teachers share their views, they open themselves up to the direct critique of their ideas by students. If a teacher is comfortable with being at the center of this argument, then it can be a very engaging experience for both the teacher and the student. However, because these kinds of dialogues can become heated or elicit antagonism, teachers may feel that their sense of authority is threatened.
Teachers who choose to share and defend their positions must recognize that they may not be able to simultaneously maintain the level of authority and thus power that they want to. For teachers whose professional identities are predicated on their level of control that they maintain, sharing their stance on conflictual issues may reduce their ability to manage the classroom. This again is important relative to the discussion of authority because it may lead to more defensive teaching practices. It is also viable to note that teachers may not even be aware of the manner in which their values may be manifested
188 through their pedagogical practices (Cotton, 2006). In this sense, while teachers may believe that they uphold the values of critical literacy, they may feel uncomfortable when it is enacted in the classroom because their values as professionals may be at odds with the values of critical literacy dialogues.
Liston and Zeichner (1987) additionally believe that it is the teacher’s role to ensure that students consider a range of viewpoints and stances and that “a critical education would seem to require this sort of moral deliberation” (p. 122). Thus it is possible that if a teacher does share their position, it may influence students – consciously or subconsciously
– to develop the same position. Again, given the position of authority that a teacher holds in the reproductive nature of schooling, students may believe that agreement with the teacher is the ultimate aim or a way to measure the degree to which they have the right position on the topic. The entrenched nature of schooling may be one where students simply come to rely on the banking model and ultimately expect that from their teachers.
While the proposed Manitoba ELA curriculum encourages students to consider multiple and alternative viewpoints, as well as possible solutions and conclusions (Government of
Manitoba, 2017a), it does not discuss whether or not the teacher would be part of this process as well.
Outside of the question of neutrality is the extent to which a teacher should interject during classroom dialogues. For example, there is a concern that asking guiding questions impacts the outcome of critical dialogues because “by using questions teachers may unwittingly constrain expression of student thought, all the while hoping to enhance it”
(Dillon, 1982, p. 140). On the other hand, silence also has consequences. As Brookfield
(1995) explains, “Students told me that my unwillingness to intervene too directly in class
189 discussions for fear of overemphasizing the power of my own voice was actually allowing for the perpetuation of differences of class, race, and gender that existed outside the classroom” (xii). Kelly and Brandes (2001) propose a position of inclusive and situated engagement: “inclusive”, which signals concern in attending to perspectives of excluded minorities; “situated”, which signals that teachers are within particular landscapes of identities, values, and social situations; and “engagement”, which signals that their viewpoints are open to critique and model reasoned inquiry and action. The hope is that by combining all of these elements, teachers and students can engage in meaningful critical dialogues with care.
Proximity. Another important factor that influences a teacher’s desire to remain neutral on particular topics is the element of proximity, the measure of how recently an event has taken place and the level of personal attachment to that issue. For example,
Magendzo & Toledo’s (2009) examined the moral dilemmas Chilean teachers faced in the context of human rights violations by the military regimes that came into power in 1973.
The study found that “teaching becomes much more difficult and complex and several moral problems arise because of the proximity of the events, diverse interpretations of the facts and the different levels and ways of involvement of the teachers and students” (p.
445). This raised moral and ethical issues and because of “differing memories, conflicts frequently emerge as one group continues to justify the action of the military and another demands truth, reparation and justice” (Magendzo & Toledo, 2009, p. 447). In an attempt to counter possible conflict, the Chilean Ministry of Education encouraged the presentation of diverse historiographical positions to students. As such, this created a moral dilemma for teachers “to present differing interpretations as if they were of the same order, though the
190 teachers’ interpretations had implications that differed ideologically, politically and in their impact on the daily lives of people (Magendzo & Toledo, 2009, p. 452-453). Magendzo &
Toledo (2009) maintain that it is therefore impossible for teachers to remain neutral.
However, they also contend that teachers need to express their stance and share their positions as this is a prerequisite for democratic citizenship. What is intriguing about this particular study is their perception of dialogue:
The moral values at play in this situation are tolerance and the teacher’s ability to
generate dialogue. Real dialogue between teachers and students and between
students is not common in the classroom. It seems to us that it is the teacher’s task
to develop his or her skills of argument and to lay the foundations of his or her
position before the students, modelling this way of behaving to them. The teacher’s
role is to allow space for diversity and to generate the conditions that make dialogue
possible. Moreover, it is not only necessary to begin dialogue, but to maintain it, so
that accepting others and their differences is actually possible. (Magendzo &
Toledo, 2009, p. 460)
Silence. Critical literacy proponents advocate for the examination of texts for
‘silenced’ voices and encourage students to have a voice and share their stances, concepts that are foundational to critical literacy. Student voice is often interspersed with the teacher’s in the classroom. In my own ELA classrooms, students frequently look to me to gauge my reaction and hear what I have to say in part because of my role in the classroom.
This often includes ensuring students take turns sharing ideas and providing ample opportunities to participate in class dialogues. While encouraging students to engage in dialogues can be a struggle itself, the opposite act of silencing a student appears to be quite
191 harmful. Silencing can cause students to feel constrained in fully divulging or articulated their stances because sharing “beliefs and feelings lie closer to the core of our persons than do most actions we perform; restrictions of expressions may offend dignity to a greater degree than most other restriction” (Greenwalt in Fantl, 2018, p. 125). Therefore a teacher’s manner of discerning when and how to oversee a discussion, and particularly when to interject or silence, becomes pivotal to students’ sense of well-being in the dialogic process.
Silence on the part of the teacher can also be harmful in conflictual discussions. A sexual harassment incident occurred in my school one morning and within hours students had become increasingly disturbed, upset and frustrated by news of the incident. A random discussion broke out in my classroom between various students related to the #metoo movement and quickly devolved into a contentious dispute. Some female students argued that men could not fully understand or empathize with woman who had experienced sexual harassment. In response, a male student asked me to interject and share my opinion and I immediately recognized his need to feel validated as he was the obvious dissenter of the group. This situation highlights a significant dilemma for teachers on conflictual discussions in the classroom: voluntarily or involuntarily, the teacher inevitably becomes involved.
Some of the most contentious conflictual dialogues to occur in my class were not planned or even directly about the particular topic at hand, but organically morphed to a place that resonated with students. I feel especially responsible in these cases because I directly engage students in these kinds of conversations every day. As a proponent of conflictual dialogues, I regularly embed myself into these narratives and have encouraged
192 an environment of involvement. This is where one’s manner of teaching is imperative because while the topic being discussed may not be ‘assigned’ by the teacher, it is still in the context of that teacher’s classroom. Ultimately critical literacy proponents argue for teachers to immerse themselves into these dialogues without fear:
True dialogue cannot exist unless the dialoguers engage in critical thinking—
thinking which discerns an indivisible solidarity between the world and the people
and admits of no dichotomy between them—thinking which perceives reality as
process, as transformation, rather than as static entity-thinking which does not
separate itself from action, but constantly immerses itself in temporality without
fear of the risks involved. (Freire, 1970, p. 73)
However appealing, a prominent question still remains: if these ‘authentic’ dialogues require a lack of fear and the authentic self, where is the line between a teacher expressing a personal stance as an individual or in their professional position of authority and power?
Conclusion
Navigating difficult, contentious, and complex issues and topics (Government of
Manitoba, 2017a) is promoted in the ELA classroom. However, these topics in the ELA classroom are complicated because to be enacted successfully they require many considerations by the teacher. In particular, teachers have to carefully navigate their roles as and in authority, understand the potential inevitability of teaching defensively, recognize the complexities of ‘neutrality’ and partiality, and consider their students’ proximity to the dialogic topics being explored. These elements are crucial for educators who envision themselves as critical literacy proponents. This philosophical inquiry highlights many moral and ethical dimensions that teachers and students ultimately face as critical learners
193 and educators. The National Council of Teachers of English states, “There is no apolitical classroom. English language arts teachers must examine the ways that racism has personally shaped their beliefs and must examine existing biases that feed systems of oppression” (2017, para. 3). Christensen (2009) furthers this notion asserting, “Some might say that the role of language arts teacher is to teach reading, writing, and language and that we should not be worrying about issues like injustice or racism. But I would respond that the teaching of literacy is political…-whether it portrays the status quo or argues for a reorganization of society” (Christensen, 2009, p. 54). However, teachers are under increasing pressure to meet the needs of their students in the modern classroom. Diverse student learning needs, classroom sizes, curriculum outcomes, and teaching outside of areas of specialization contribute to highly stressful and complex working environments.
These demands are further compounded by that fact that teachers are now expected to teach towards broader and loftier goals, such as citizenship and social justice, with complex moral and ethical dimensions, often without the necessary resources or time to be reflexive about the moral and ethical dimensions of their classes. This is a major issue because critical literacy is not simply an easily incorporated methodology or “best practice”. It is a much more complex philosophy that disrupts the commonplace to examine power to elicit change, and these are factors that can be immensely dissonant in the lives of teachers and their students.
Research of teacher neutrality in the politicized classroom highlights the complex balance between neutrality and stance. I argue that this should be more central to critical literacy research and ELA pedagogy. For many teachers, the consequences of their risks have in fact outweighed the reward and, in some cases, their desire to place their identities
194 at the center of their students’ learning has been unethical and prompts the need to be alert to the potential for indoctrination.
195 Chapter VIII – Indoctrination
The term indoctrination is derived from the Latin indoctrinare, meaning the instruction of a subject or a doctrine (Curren, 2008). Campbell (2013) notes that, “most definitions of indoctrination attend to the combined and interdependent issues of content, method, intention, and outcomes” (p. 230). The subject of indoctrination is addressed throughout critical literacy research because of its association to the examination of politics, power, and social justice, topics which are especially focused on values and notions of what constitutes right and wrong. For this reason, critical literacy educators often find themselves tasked with mediating and overseeing politically minded ends while facing increased scrutiny regarding their efforts to elicit particular critical literacy ends.
Fears of student indoctrination have raised ongoing questions around the purposes and implications of knowledge reproduction, social hegemony, and the hidden curricula. In a contemporary context, the term indoctrination is more commonly associated with invasive state acts such as brainwashing or propaganda, but it was perceived as a positive outcome during the early 20th century. Social reconstructionist George S. Counts’ Dare the School
Build a New Social Order? envisioned indoctrination as a positive tool to promote and maintain a positive social vision of society:
Education as a force for social regeneration must march hand in hand with the
living and creative forces of the social order. In their own lives teachers must bridge
the gap between school and society and play some part in the fashioning of those
great common purposes which should bind the two together. (Counts, 2004, p. 30)
Between 1935 and 1938, an exchange between Boyd H. Bode and John L. Childs on the topic of indoctrination occurred in the Social Frontier (Kridel, 2010). Childs emphasized
196 the benefits of indoctrination towards specific social ends while Bode argued that its use was undemocratic as the ends were already predetermined. As such, the “preordained ends of Counts’ “imposition” seemed hard to distinguish from indoctrination” (Flinders &
Thornton, 2004, p. 7). Theodore Brameld, a devotee of social reconstructionism, argued that “teachers should be willing to discuss ideology in the classroom. Only through open discourse and the critical examination of ideas could teachers hold beliefs that were also defensible” (Kridel, 2010, p. 476). Childs’ and Bode’s positions very much embody the ethical dilemmas inherent to critical literacy’s social justice ends, ends that could also be described as preordained.
More recently, Campbell (2013) describes a dispute over the removal of ‘social justice’ from the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education’s (NCATE) glossary of teacher dispositions. This initially led to accusations that NCATE was politicizing teaching, and defenders argued that ‘social justice’ was simply a progressive approach to teaching fairly and equitably. However, imposing a social justice perspective or issue upon students who are then compelled to accept it certainly appears to be indoctrination:
Ironically, while social justice education is founded on a critical examination and
ultimate rejection of what it portrays as the dominant paradigm, the taken-for-
granted, and the normative narratives in society, it seems to violate its own principle
to never accept any idea uncritically by compelling students and teachers alike to
embrace its tenets without genuine, open-minded, and impartial debate or critique.
(Campbell, 2013, p. 232)
197 As an educator, I would argue that imposing a professional obligation to endorse social justice positions is highly problematic, particularly as dissent could be viewed as a lack of professional commitment, an unwillingness to abide by organizational norms, or insubordination. It is increasingly valuable to understand and discern what is recognized as
‘indoctrination’ in schools today.
Defining Indoctrination
By definition, the act of indoctrinating supports learning that “fails to consider proofs, reason, evidence, and opposes the improvement of the capacity of the learner to think for himself” (Casement, 1983, p. 231). Snook (1970) defines it as teaching ideology in a manner that it is the only claim to rationality. Collectively, these definitions highlight the central issues of indoctrination, most notably concerns related to educative purposes and aims, as opposed to solely focusing on content (Hare, 1972), how beliefs come to be held by students (Green, 1964), and a lack of criticality resulting in the acceptance of false or questionable beliefs (Casement, 1983). According to Beehler (1985), indoctrination has four visible elements upheld by the teacher:
i) An inability to help students differentiate between an opinion and the reason(s)
for holding said opinion
ii) not critically and openly displaying justification for beliefs or judgments
iii) not actively engaging students in thinking about and relating new knowledge to
what they already know
iv) not preventing indoctrination, thus not place students’ independent thoughts and
reasoning at the forefront of the learning
198 While all four elements identified by Beehler are important, I would argue that it is the last element, “placing students’ thoughts and reasoning at the forefront”, that is of the most concern to critical literacy.
Understandably, the belief that each student’s thoughts and reasoning are valid and deserve to be at the forefront of classroom dialogues is a worthwhile concept but, in the reality of the classroom, it is an unrealistic expectation. Some students may have little prior knowledge about the topic at hand, may be unable to distinguish between opinions, reasons, or facts (Beehler, 1985), or may have strong biases or opinions considered racist or hateful by their peers. For this reason, teachers act as mediators and stand ready to interject when a student’s presented ideas or beliefs are unethical and harmful to classroom learning.
However, in a broader sense, I would also argue that this is the very purpose of an education. Students, like all citizens, hold a diverse array of opinions and positions, not all of which are particularly insightful. Nevertheless, these positions warrant discussion and validation and can provide excellent learning opportunities. Conversely, to suggest that some students’ positions are more or less appropriate, more or less insightful, or more or less valid is also slippery slope. And should we proceed this way, who becomes the arbiter of this judgment? Ultimately, I would argue that teachers are responsible for assessing and articulating the appropriateness, insightfulness, and validity of arguments and use these positions to illustrate counterarguments.
Teachers are also expected to uphold and demonstrate the manner in which engaging academic dialogues within ELA should be conducted. For example, it would be unethical for a teacher to sit idle as a student issues a hateful, racist rant. On the other hand, this student’s thoughts and reasoning would therefore not be at the forefront of learning. It
199 does raise the question of how students ultimately come to be educated. If my purpose as a critical literacy educator is some form of actualization, I am obligated to meet that student where they are in their thinking to affect some increased level of consciousness. True criticality probably cannot take place if I dismiss their premise or idea and participation in considering viewpoints and possible solutions and conclusions (Government of Manitoba,
2017a). Furthermore, this is precisely the kind of student who would benefit most from authentic dialogue. The nature of dialogue is not only premised upon our feelings and experiences, but logic, reason, and knowledge. Thus a dilemma emerges: if a student’s ideas are deemed unethical by the teacher because they do not support the common good of all students, this implies that the teacher knows what is best and right and reinforces the previous debate over teacher authority and resistance. This position of authority could ultimately suppress a dissenting voice if not carefully and ethically managed.
Imagine a class discussing a country’s immigration policy, a topic with significant political and economic underpinnings. In this case, let’s imagine that the teacher’s stance is that the country should have an open border policy and that immigrants deserve basic human rights including personal safety. If a student disagrees, suggesting that it takes a significant economic toll, the teacher can disagree and argue that the student’s position implies that money is more valuable than human life. The teacher’s argument may be weak but reveals the ability they have to maneuver the dialogue in their favor given their position of authority, rhetorical skills, demeanor, or knowledge of the material or topic. Thus they may not meet any of Beehler’s (1985) criteria, including differentiating between opinion and reason, openly displaying justification for beliefs, connecting previous knowledge, or placing student’s thoughts at the forefront. However, I would argue that it still constitutes a
200 form of indoctrination because the teacher is utilizing their skills and position to their advantage. Thus, the practical, real-life identification of indoctrination is considerably more complex than the abstract criteria might suggest.
Woods and Barrow’s (2006) research identified what they characterized as the four conditions of indoctrination. These include content as an initial belief in doctrines, an
‘unshakeable’ belief system, the use of non-rational methods of persuasion, and a particular intention for indoctrinating. Woods and Barrow’s conditions seem to imply a prescribed intention that foregrounds student learning in the sense that descriptions like ‘unshakeable’ and ‘irrational’ suggest a dogmatic approach. Additionally, the first three elements are much more concrete than assessing someone’s level of intention. Intention is very important and considered a key element in determining whether or not indoctrination is occurring (Snook, 1973; White, 1972). Momanu (2012) makes an interesting case:
If only the intention matters, then no teacher can be accused of indoctrination if
he/she manages to make students adhere to a doctrine by using an attractive style
and persuasion and no hidden intentions. Similarly, a teacher who teaches a
dangerous or false doctrine in which he/she really believes cannot be considered as
indoctrinating. It is obvious that such situations are debatable and draw attention to
the fact that the identification and qualification of intentions is not always possible.
Therefore, although the intention is essential for understanding a situation of
indoctrination, this cannot constitute the single functional criterion. (pp. 96–97)
Momanu’s position implies that critical literacy praxis cannot constitute indoctrination because if only solely assessed by intention, there are no ‘hidden’ intentions and the teacher truly believes what they are teaching. Thus, intention as the only criteria is not sufficient.
201 Scheffler (1973) notes that there are steps teachers can take to avoid indoctrinating. These include a) building student understanding and knowledge of rational processes; b) recognizing that knowledge is not permanent and open for questioning; c) critically gauging teaching outcomes to ensure that theories and beliefs are adequately justified to students; and d) ensuring that students have reasonable evidence for what is taught.
Scheffler (1973) additionally clarifies a difference between teaching versus indoctrinating:
Teaching by contrast, engages the mind, no matter what the subject matter. The
teacher is prepared to explain, that is, to acknowledge the student’s rights to ask for
reasons and has concomitant right to exercise his judgements on the merits of the
case. Teaching is, in this standard sense an initiation into open rational discussion.
(p. 62)
I agree with Scheffler’s idea that the level of engagement that a teacher is willing to take to explain and engage students matters, but this does not imply that indoctrination is not taking place; a teacher can still fully engage students with the underlying intention of indoctrinating. This pseudo-dialogue is of concern to critical theorists who warn that true dialogue can take place without students realizing it is not authentic. What Beehler (1985),
Woods and Barrow (2006), and Scheffler (1973) all recognize are fundamental elements of what can constitute indoctrination in the classroom, but these conditions and methodological approaches are part of a much larger philosophical predicament within the politically-minded tradition of critical literacy.
Critical Literacy and Indoctrination
Indoctrination is “both a normative belief that teachers should impose good values on students and an empirical belief that schools do in fact impose values on students”
202 (Kridel, 2010, p. 475). However, the critical literacy tradition in particular may attempt to prescribe a singular narrative (Burbules & Berk, 1999). One concern is that a Freirean notion of critical consciousness implies a neo-Marxist perspective and the imposition of knowledge (Mejía, 2004):
Convergence on a predefined form of knowledge, however, is contrary to what is
implied by dialogue. As explained before, humility and faith--two requirements for
participants in a true dialogue, according to Freire--qualify one's partners in
dialogue, to one’s eyes, as persons whose contributions might change one’s
understanding and whose understanding might be changed with one’s contributions.
But this is where the tension appears: critical consciousness as a predefined
knowledge already sets a divide that separates those who have that knowledge from
those who do not, thus preventing them from entering dialogue. (Mejía, 2004, p. 69)
Burbules’ (1993) research coincides with Mejía’s speculation noting that there is “a latent assumption that the teacher should lead students to particular conclusions of belief and action, which is in conflict with the basic conception of an ‘empowering’ pedagogy”
(p. 23). Moreover, Mejía (2004) argues that a dialogical education does not necessarily ensure that students develop Friere’s notion of ‘critical consciousness’. This raises the ethical question of how a critical literacy practitioner determines if a student has attained or has come to some kind of ‘better’ understanding. The ELA curriculum emphasizes examining bias, considering alternative viewpoints and different perspectives, as well as solutions and conclusions (Government of Manitoba, 2017a). While theoretically examining other experiences, positions, sources, etc. can lead to new understandings, moral issues in particular may lead to more deeply divisive and strongly rooted positions:
203 The crucial problem, of course, is what happens when students resist or reject the
‘emancipation’ that is provided. What if they do not want to be ‘liberated’ or
‘empowered’ in the way that the teacher has envisaged for them? One familiar way
of resolving this dilemma is through recourse to a notion of false consciousness;
because they are seen to be mystified or deluded in some way, the students are
unable to realize their own true interests, and the teacher must therefore act on their
behalf. This approach has the advantage of being a self-confirming argument: the
more students resist, the more they are seen to be in need of ideological
remediation, and the more the teacher's intervention and authority are justified.
(Buckingham, 1998, p. 5)
In the Manitoba context, the Winnipeg School Division has two mandatory units that all Grade 9 and 10 English language arts teachers are required to teach: a Grade 9
Human Rights one and a Grade 10 Human Rights unit entitled Emerging Aboriginal
Voices, both which are “required learning in all ELA classes across the WSD” (Winnipeg
School Division, 2010, p. 13). These are instructed as closed issues with the intention of ensuring that all Grade 9 and Grade 10 ELA students are aware of the atrocities of both the
Holocaust as well as the history of residential schools abuse and Indigenous oppression in
Canada. In the case of these two units, there are no significant ethical concerns around undue ideological impositions. However, in the case that an open issue is taught as a closed issue, there may be opposition from students that directly impacts the student-teacher relationship (Buckingham, 1998). In particular, students who feel unheard or unacknowledged because their positions are not similar to the teacher may feel intimidated
204 or uncomfortable. Further, it may also conflict with their own morals and/or experiences and have the unintended effect of silencing their voices.
Thus, indoctrination can be visible in the manner that it does not support moral agency. Campbell (2013) explains, “Indoctrination violates one of the first principles of ethics—autonomy. It denies the student’s right as a free moral agent to develop informed and rational alternative judgments about controversial issues and choose his or her preferred perspectives across a spectrum of options” (p. 230). Teachers who actively push their own agendas are bound to attract and repel students and, here, the debate of neutrality resurfaces. Yet Lankshear and McLaren (1993) argue that the purpose is not to indoctrinate but create consciousness as this encourages students “to understand the nature and implications of the ideologies on parade; and in doing so engage students in reflection upon their own ideological investments” (p. 8). This, however, is difficult if students feel pressured to side with teachers and, in light of their authority in the classroom, it is hard to imagine that students would not feel some pressure to agree.
As the topic of indoctrination receives increasing attention in education research, a clearer picture of its various forms has emerged. Indoctrination can also include actions such as teaching a controversial topic without sufficient reasoning or evidence, or teaching a topic that is not partisan in a partisan manner (Copp, 2016). Conversely, even if epistemic reasons are provided, it is still possible to indoctrinate by choosing biased or unfairly balanced reasons. It can also take the form of teaching a topic that is not appropriate for the students’ age, intellectual capacity, or sensitivities. In this vein, “students might not have sufficient sophistication and training to grasp the epistemically best case for believing a proposition. It is important for students to be given reasons that they can understand and
205 that they can understand to be reasons for believing what they are being taught” (Copp,
2006, p. 154). Moreover, Hess (2009) emphasizes the need to determine if the topic is open, closed, or tipping, which dictates the type of inquiries students will make. Open questions and unsettled issues can be described as those “for which we want students to engage in deliberating multiple and competing answers”(p. 113). Open topics present a multitude of perspectives with competing positions. Closed questions and settled issues are those “for which we want students to build and believe a particular answer” (Hess, 2009, p.
113). Tipping occurs when the discussion of topics moves between open and closed. These are important distinctions because open and closed issues must be approached differently.
Attempting to teach an open issue with the intent of landing on a predestined conclusion could be construed as indoctrination because the issue is in fact open and has competing answers but is not being taught in that manner.
A System of Indoctrination
In contrast to those cautioning about indoctrination on the part of some critical pedagogues and social justice advocates, those writing from critical perspectives themselves, such as Donald Macedo, raise an opposing critique. In his article entitled
“Literacy for Stupidification: The Pedagogy of Big Lies”, Macedo contends that, “Courses such as race relations, ethics, and ideology are almost absent from the teacher preparation curriculum. This serious omission is, by its very nature, ideological, and constitutes the foundation for what I call the pedagogy of big lies” (p. 186). The conceptualization of critical literacy requires criticality at every level and educators must first desire and embody this criticality. Macedo argues that “naivete is never innocent, but ideological. It is ideological to the degree that they [teachers] have invested in a system that rewards them
206 for reproducing and not questioning dominant mechanisms designed to produce power asymmetries along the lines of race, gender, class, culture, and ethnicity” (p. 186). While this claim may be solely for the purpose of ensuring a positive exchange of ideas, it furthers the idea that “the very act of viewing education as neutral and devoid of politics is, in fact, a political act” (Macedo, 1993, p. 187). Thus teachers must recognize their roles in the reproduction of ideas within their own profession and the implications of pursuing a critical literacy curricula.
Macedo also refers to the concept of fragmentation as an “inability to make linkages between bodies of knowledge and the social and political realities that generate them” (p.
193). Macedo’s examination of fragmentation within education is an important consideration in regard to indoctrination because teachers may never envision or believe that their work is a form of indoctrination. He explains that teachers, as specialists, “have accepted the dominant ideology…by virtue of the specialized training they receive in an assembly line of ideas, and aided by the mystification of this transferred knowledge” (p.
194). The inability to make linkages is further prompted by a “reductionistic view of the act of knowing. They have repeatedly ignored that their very claim of objectivity is, in fact, an ideological act” (p. 192). This closely correlates to the issue of indoctrination within critical literacy because if teachers are unaware of the banking mechanisms they are subject to, can they really capable of exposing and examining these with their students?
The indoctrination process imposes a willful blindness that views facts and
contradictions as irrelevant. On the other hand, the more educated and specialized
individuals become, the more vested interest they have in the system that provides
them with special privileges. For this reason, we often see people whose
207 consciousness has not been totally atrophied; yet they fail to read reality critically
and they side with hypocrisy. In most cases, these individuals begin to believe the
lies and, in their roles as functionaries of the state, they propagate the lies. (Macedo,
1993, p. 203)
As a teacher, it could be argued that my own inability to make linkages between my area of specialization and the social and political realities of which I belong may be the first and primary challenge of engaging in critical literacy practices. This parallels research into the role of educators in the promotion of larger philosophical constructs:
The epistemic authority of teachers is used to cover the real intentions of the
system. A student is more open to follow the advice to comply with, and to adhere
to a system of values when it comes from a person who is an authority that he/she
respects, even if this is a deontic authority. This is why totalitarian regimes paid a
special attention to schools and teachers whom they wanted to adhere to their cause
in order to further accept to transfer their authority to the system, which is to change
the epistemic authority into a deontic one (Momanu, 2012, p. 91)
In fact, perhaps critical literacy must first be organically attained before one even steps into the classroom. Fobes and Kaufman (2008) argue:
If we hope that students are engaged with the course material and with the outside
world, then we need to demonstrate what such engagement looks like. We cannot
rest on our laurels and rely on what worked well in the past. We need to constantly
create and recreate the course based on the students in the classroom, the current
state of affairs, and our own development as human beings. (p. 29)
208 In this respect, teachers must invest in the continual develop their own ideas and approaches. It has also been noted that, “By understanding indoctrination as occurring within complex social systems, we recognize that the responsibility to educate and not to indoctrinate extends beyond the individual teacher” (Taylor, 2017, p. 55–56). This highlights the manner in which schools, school communities, divisions, and even governments can be significant stakeholders in the issue of indoctrination. Rather than suggesting that teachers take actions to avoid indoctrination, Macmillan (1998) contends that indoctrination is simply an inevitability that actually extends beyond the teacher in the classroom:
the logical inevitability of indoctrination does not and cannot serve as a justification
for its political inevitability. For by the time children are in school, it is assumed
that they have developed the world-pictures that form the basis of their further
learning and intellectual abilities. Indeed, they become more and more critics of
their own world pictures as they grow older—and it is this that we should be
arguing that schools should promote. (p. 13-14)
Freire’s (1970) belief that a “teacher cannot think for her students, nor can she impose her thought on them” (p. 77) highlights the need for constant self-awareness educators must exercise to avoid indoctrination. Educators with preconceived ends to their dialogic teaching raise the issue of imposed ends, possibly undermining reflexivity, dismissing the validity of competing values, and possibly indoctrinating. This study further emphasizes that teachers need to be aware of their position towards particular controversial issues and seek a balanced approach that highlights a myriad of positions, without denial, privilege, or avoidance (Hess, 2009). This is so difficult to do because these issues are so
209 closely tied to our identities and experiences (Hand & Levinson, 2011). Teachers have to be reflective practitioners in order to be critical literacy pedagogues. This includes thinking about their beliefs, assumptions, theories, approaches, and methods, grounded in both action and reflection. This is a complex process because so much of dialogical teaching is in the moment. It requires hyper-awareness and ethical decision-making and can be especially challenging for teachers with existing professional deficits or issues.
Initially referred to as “intellectual intercommunication” by John Dewey (Sorenson et al., 1987), the freedom of expression is a foundation of education, and “education, in turn, enhances the intelligent use of that freedom. While the transmission of societal values through education is vital, too great a focus on inculcation runs the risk of undermining not only free speech (a preeminent social value in itself), but effective education and democracy as well” (Sorenson et al., 1987, p. 2-3). Deliberations around freedom of expression are also part of a larger conceptualization of academic freedom, described as
“the rights faculty have to teach their subject matter, engage in research, speak on matters of public concern, and provide service to others without unnecessary interference from administrators” (Smith, 2005, p. 64). The term academic freedom originated in German universities hundreds of years ago to ensure that faculty had the freedom to teach conclusions from their research that included controversial opinions, but this did not extend to “public elementary and secondary schools (which) were not established to do original research” (Blankenburg, 1971, p. 153). While there is a differentiation between academic freedom at the secondary and post-secondary levels, the legal complexities raise some concern over the manner in which teachers are legally protected and guided. For this reason, I acknowledge the differentiation but also believe this area of research provides
210 valuable considerations for educators who do not just place political discourses at the center of their teaching, but do so by weighing in with their own opinions and stances.
The discussion of academic freedom in higher education is a prominent legal topic, though it does apply to and affect many public school teachers as well:
It is clear from education case law and history that the genesis of academic freedom
is found in higher education. However, public school teachers bring the majority of
cases. By doing so, they add to the uncertainty of and confusion over the contours
of academic freedom by asking the question: “To whom does it belong?”
(DeMitchell & Connelly, 2007, p. 84-85)
This is an important consideration for critical literacy pedagogues who examine controversial issues of public concern, engage in dissonant dialogues, and explore dissenting positions.
The Legal Dimension
In his book entitled Legal Dimensions of Education, Delaney (2007) explains that both the legal and moral dimensions “co-exist in education and teachers and school administrators need to be cognizant of both dimensions” (p. 111). He points out that while these dimensions should complement each other, they occasionally oppose each other.
Specifically, there are circumstances in which teachers may have to decide between what is legally appropriate and what is morally appropriate (Delaney, 2007). It is worth noting that critical literacy research is notably absent of any exploration of historical or implicit legal consequences of teacher’s actions particularly around issues of politics and free speech.
This is an important consideration because “When the attention of individuals and groups is turned to educational improvement, a multiplicity of socio-political views and values
211 emerge, along with a potential for substantial controversy” (Sorenson et al., 1987, p. 2). For this reason, a teacher’s individual political views can be caught in the crosshairs of school culture, histories, and politics themselves. This is best illustrated in the various cases that have been litigated in North America and highlight the ethical complexities of teaching and the potential vulnerability of teachers.
One such issue is the level of pedagogical freedom of speech that teachers have.
Open dialogue and silencing often continue outside of the classroom and into the domain of law when complexities are beyond the ethical scope of the educational institutions in which they occur. For example, Callan (2011) reports:
The gap between legal and ethical considerations matters here because incivility-
targeted silencing can be open to ethical criticism when no one could seriously
argue that a legally cognizable violation of any student’s right to free speech has
occurred. When students’ incivility is punished through formal sanctions, they may
have avenues for redress through law. (pp. 4–5)
Many of the most complicated moral and ethical concerns around open speech in the classroom are carefully scrutinized by the courts, and these cases become “helpful to recall the factors that make the inevitable balancing of competing values so problematic”
(Sorenson et al., 1987, p. 2). These competing values parallel many of the same competing values that critical literacy dialogues can raise.
Prominent cases. The rights of teachers who discuss their political views in the classroom have long been a point of contention for educators and have also been examined in legal arenas. Some of these cases are particularly relevant to the topic of critical literacy dialogic learning in the ELA classroom. For the purposes of this study, I utilized research
212 around both Canadian and United States legal cases. The purpose of employing a United
States orientation is not as a matter of legal precedents but rather for the unique insights that these particular historical cases produce. In particular, these cases highlight many important questions and philosophical discourses relative to teacher’s rights, varying notions of right and wrong, as well as the ethical dimensions and insights they may bring to teachers within a Canadian context as well.
One of the first significant historical cases around politicized topics in the university classroom was examined in the case of Paul M. Sweezy (Sweezy v. New
Hampshire, 1957). This case examined the right to refuse the expression of personal political views during the political climate of anti-communist rhetoric and the Cold War.
Sweezy had been invited by the University of New Hampshire to deliver a lecture on
Marxism, which drew the attention from the Attorney General who charged Sweezy with
‘subversive activities’. At the time, a subversive person was defined as someone who “aids in the commission of any act intended to assist in the alteration of the constitutional form of government by force or violence” (Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 1957, p. 354). Ultimately the case centered on the assertion that Sweezy’s lecture advocated Marxism and theories of dialectical materialism and he was pressured to disclose his political associations and provide the names of others who shared the same political associations, which he refused to do. He declined to answer questions about the subject of his lecture, his position on socialism and Marxism, his theory of dialectical materialism, and whether or not he believed in communism. The Supreme Court found that in this case, the appellant's rights, under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, were violated:
213 No one should underestimate the vital role in a democracy that is played by those
who guide and train our youth. To impose any strait jacket upon the intellectual
leaders in our colleges and universities would imperil the future of our Nation. No
field of education is so thoroughly comprehended by man that new discoveries
cannot yet be made. Particularly is that true in the social sciences, where few, if
any, principles are accepted as absolutes. Scholarship cannot flourish in an
atmosphere of suspicion and distrust. Teachers and students must always remain
free to inquire, to study and to evaluate, to gain new maturity and understanding;
otherwise our civilization will stagnate and die. (Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 1957,
p. 250)
Of particular interest in this analysis is the note around the freedom of inquiry. In a critical literacy dialogic classroom, the purpose of these dialogues is to reach new understanding through an inquiry approach, in that students’ understanding and interests are at the forefront. Education is also a platform for the development of new understanding. This applies to students and teachers, and I would argue that this note does in its nature imply some level of fallibility that teachers must face. Thus the premise is a progressive vision of education that must be grounded in trust. Concurring with the verdict, Justice Frankfurter stated:
For society’s good–if understanding be an essential need of society–inquiries into
these problems, speculations about them, stimulation in others of reflection upon
them, must be left as unfettered as possible. Political power must abstain from
intrusion into this activity of freedom, pursued in the interest of wise government
214 and the people's well-being, except for reasons that are exigent and obviously
compelling. (Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 1957, p. 262)
The Supreme Court recognized that education in the humanities must allow for opportunities to inquire and seek new understandings and that there is a danger of politics intruding into education, defined as an “activity of freedom”. From an ethical standpoint,
Frankfurter’s note around people’s wellbeing implies a level of care for the common good and that educational freedom is a foundation of its potential success. Sweezy v New
Hampshire (1957) highlights the fragile balance between teaching and learning that is progressive and may, by its nature, elicit opposition from the contemporary political climate.
However, the concept of education as an act of freedom does come with a variety of caveats, as demonstrated in the case of Pickering v. Board of Education (1968). In this case, a teacher wrote a letter to a local paper criticizing the superintendent’s allocation of school finances to athletics. While the letter contained misinformation, the courts determined that it was protected by of the teacher’s constitutional rights. It was concluded that, “As long as it could be shown that the teacher did not knowingly or recklessly make false statements that irreparably harmed the educational enterprise or affected the teacher’s ability to work with immediate superiors or coworkers, speech was protected” (Sorenson et al., 1987, p. 4). The Pickering v. Board of Education (1968) case helped to established the principle that teachers, as public employees, are not required to abandon their individual rights to speak freely on issues of public importance because they are government employees.
215 The landmark Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District (1969) case examined the rights of junior and senior high students who were protesting the Vietnam war by wearing armbands. The Supreme Court found that students and teachers could maintain their rights to free speech in school (Sorenson at al., 1987). The Court concluded that the school did not have the right to restrict the students’ speech unless it interfered with discipline or school operations. This ruling would become a legal standard known as the
Tinker test to determine if a school had faced “material and substantial interference” as a result of in-class speech. The Tinker case is important to this study because it shows that the courts recognize and value student activism with the previous stated caveat. This case has gone on to be used as a precedent for other cases, including Bishop v. Aronov (1990) the case of a professor holding religious-related meetings outside of class for his students.
The Court found that a teacher’s expression is ultimately a representation of the school, and thus a teacher’s personal expressions bear scrutiny. Although student expression can be identified as independent of the school, this expression must nonetheless be reasonable.
For example, in Bethel School District v. Fraser (1986) a student made sexually explicit double-entendres as part of a school wide speech. Inevitably, the Supreme Court held that unlike Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District (1969), Bethel School District v.
Fraser (1986) places a limit on the scope of that ruling due to the sexual vulgarity of expression. Thus these cases underline many imperative considerations. In particular, they analyze the different expectations of teachers and students given their positions of power and moral authority and that speech must be assessed relative to its position within its pedagogical context.
216 The Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District (1969) case highlights many important considerations from a critical literacy lens. Firstly, it emphasizes that school officials cannot restrict students’ freedom of expression simply because they may feel uncomfortable or disagree with their position.
Secondly, the expression of social and political views in schools does not constitute misbehavior. In addition, that the “fear or apprehension of disturbance is not enough to overcome the right of freedom and expression”. This implies that students’ First
Amendment rights in the United States are protected should slight disturbance occur, suggesting that some disturbance may be part and parcel of the educational experience for both students and teachers. However, the Court’s lack of clarity on what constitutes a
“substantial disruption” leaves teachers and administrators responsible for determining what is ‘substantial’ in the most ethical terms possible. Ultimately the Court’s contention is that schools are the appropriate place for students to engage their freedom of expression provided it not inappropriate or unduly disruptive.
Critical literacy advocates recognize the importance of social justice and the related examination of politicized issues in the classroom. Many notable cases examine the concern over the politicization of classroom subjects and materials, particularly in situations where it is seen as a potential threat to the imprimatur of the school. In the case of Keyishian v Board of Regents (1967) where a teacher was required to sign a document stating that they were not a communist, the U.S Supreme Court found this requirement unconstitutional because classrooms are marketplaces of ideas (Smith, 2005). Despite a legal judgment in favour of the teacher, the case highlights the social and professional risk
217 to those who contemplate or introduce alternative ideas into schools. This can become a concern for the state because,
teachers play a critical part in developing students’ attitude toward government and
understanding the role of citizens in our society…No amount of standardization of
teaching materials or lesson plans can eliminate the personal qualities a teacher
brings to bear in achieving these goals. (Kaufman & Kaufman, 2018, p. 941)
This case also highlights the issue of teacher loyalty in that Keyishian’s communist connection implied that they would subversively project this ideology into their teaching. I would argue that the state’s concern is predominantly because Keyishian had a dissenting position relative to the historical context, particularly due to the Cold War era. How teachers inevitably impart their ideologies into their teaching is only seen to be a problem if is counter to the upheld hegemony of the time. Although the issue of loyalty oaths may not exist today, Heins (2018) argues that there are still attempts to challenge educators:
Today, groups such as Campus Watch and Professor Watchlist spearhead new-style
attempts to silence opinions they disfavor on campus, and virulent, sometimes
violent, threats and harassment against professors with views contrary to the
harassers’ have become increasingly common. (p. 426)
Hence the manner in which dissonant ideas are being challenged may look different, but they serve the same purpose: silencing dissenting opinions or ideas considered oppositional. Those who question educators’ efforts may find themselves ultimately winning in the court of public opinion, particularly when particular topics or words are deemed to be offensive.
218 In the Keefe v. Geanakos (1970) case, a teacher used an article from The Atlantic containing offensive terms. It was ultimately found that the article was appropriate as it was thought provoking and not an incitement to libidinous conduct. In other examples, however, the courts have also recognized that teachers are not protected from examining topics or materials unrelated to their particular area of instruction (Brubaker v. Board of
Education, 1974) nor can they utilize materials that violate the administration’s requirements of curricula (Ahern v. Board of Education of School District of Grand Island,
1972).
The courts also recognize that teachers cannot promote expressions of hate as demonstrated in R v. Keegstra (1990). This is the seminal case of James Keegstra, an
Alberta teacher, who made anti-Semitic statements in his classrooms, including the assertion that Jewish people were evil and that the Holocaust was a Jewish conspiracy that had not occurred. As per the Criminal Code, individuals are prohibited from distributing or expressing hate propaganda. Students noted that “Disagreeing with him meant a failing grade. If you wrote on the Jewish conspiracy … then you passed. If you wrote against it, then your mark wasn't the best. Everyone knew it” former student Blair Andrew told the court” (The Globe and Mail, 2014, para. 15). The hatred Keegstra espoused is especially alarming given his moral and ethical position of power, influence, and authority over students. The Supreme Court of Canada unanimously found that hate propaganda was protected as a freedom of expression in the Canadian Charter of Rights but simultaneously violated subsection 2(b) of the Charter which prohibits hate propaganda. The Supreme
Court ultimately came to justify a reasonable limit on the freedom of expression. Keegstra was fined and had his teaching certificate suspended. Of particular importance in this case
219 was the Alberta Teacher’s Association’s decision to modify its code of ethics to help avoid future cases of hate crimes, particularly towards ethnic groups. The Keegstra case marked an important differentiation between the freedom of expression and hate speech and would result in an increased scrutiny of the personal beliefs of teachers. It also highlighted that hateful propaganda can act as a mechanism that obstructs multiculturalism within Canada.
Thus while teachers may not themselves engage in behavior the courts would deem to be evil, this case demonstrates the important balance that must be considered between a teacher’s freedom of expression and the promotion of their individual beliefs as the forefront of their teaching.
Similarly, in Ross v. New Brunswick School District No 15 (1996), Ross had published anti-Semitic writing outside the classroom. The Supreme Court of Canada upheld the decision that Ross should be removed from his teaching role, given his position of power. The Ross case highlights the ethical sensitivity that teachers must consider when working with children who are naturally more vulnerable to disinformation. It is important for students to be protected from discrimination particularly because they are not yet capable of always discerning between the truth and falsehoods. Ross would go on to appeal to the UN Human Rights Committee that ultimately rejected his appeal in order to protect
Jewish children’s right to an education free of intolerance. While the Keegstra and Ross cases involved clear anti-Semitic conduct and Holocaust revisionism, lesser cases of teacher misconduct are similarly problematic. In the case of Mailloux v. Kiley (1971), the teacher used a taboo word as part of a lesson on what words are considered acceptable in society and which words are not. He was dismissed by the school board for conduct
220 unbecoming a teacher. However, the court found that his teaching was reasonable and served a greater educational purpose. The District Court of Massachusetts noted:
We do not confine academic freedom to conventional teachers or to those who can
get a majority vote from their colleagues. Our faith is that the teacher's freedom to
choose among options for which there is any substantial support will increase his
intellectual vitality and his moral strength. The teacher whose responsibility has
been nourished by independence, enterprise, and free choice becomes for his
student a better model of the democratic citizen. His examples of applying and
adapting the values of the old order to the demands and opportunities of a
constantly changing world are among the most important lessons he gives to youth.
(Mailloux v. Kiley, 1971, Opinion, para. 10)
The Court maintained that Grade 11 students had an ample level of sophistication to explore this word through an educative analysis. What is especially difficult in this case is that the teacher’s intentions were quite purposeful in recognizing the social construction of words and the way words are utilized relative to power. From a Freirean lens, this approach would uphold the foundations of critical literacy in that the teacher is attempting to deconstruct the words. However, Judge Wyzanski makes an important point:
In the instant case it is not claimed that any regulation warned plaintiff not to follow
the methods he chose. Nor can it be said that plaintiff should have known that his
teaching methods were not permitted. There is no substantial evidence that his
methods were contrary to an informal rule, to an understanding among school
teachers of his school or teachers generally, to a body of disciplinary precedents, to
221 precise canons of ethics, or to specific opinions expressed in professional journals
or other publications. (Mailloux v. Kiley, 1971, Opinion, para. 33)
Judge Wyzanski’s position highlights that teaching does not have a precise canon of ethics.
While I would argue that teachers require guidance in these situations, who should provide this guidance? As a current department head, I would be remiss to suggest that I have the moral and ethical authority to know what pedagogical approaches are best for teachers in my department. On the other hand, administrators do have a significant level of authority, but may not have a sufficient level of pedagogical expertise relative to the learning outcomes of the content area. I would also add that because critical literacy is a philosophical position, teachers who use a critical literacy lens to cultivate these kinds of dialogues, even if pedagogically sound, may not find support in administrators who do not share their philosophical sentiment. For this reason, teachers may find themselves regulated by those who have the authority but lack the ability to identify appropriate pedagogical approaches relative to their discipline and pedagogical purposes. Therefore although the legal dimensions of speech may be recognized for their overarching pedagogical intent, this does not make the teacher’s experience any less contentious.
Furthermore, even where a teacher had previous success with this approach it does not ensure that they will be successful in another context. As I have witnessed in my own pedagogical experiences, a reality of teaching is that the same lesson delivered to two different classes might have profoundly different outcomes and success. When this happens, it is a reminder of that the social construction of classroom spaces and the myriad of variables have an enormous impact on educational outcomes. Upholding a critical literacy dialogic philosophy encourages and allows for dissonance, but how that dissonance
222 is recognized is in part relative to the students. The Mailloux v. Kiley (1971) case is an important case for English language arts teachers and the use of what may be deemed as obscene or offensive words. It is common to find novels and texts that use particular words that can be described as racist, inappropriate, or triggering.
Similarly, in the case of Hardy v. Jefferson Community College (2001), a teacher examined the impact of oppressive and disparaging words, which included the use of the n- word. An African American student found this to be offensive and the college decided that a non-disruptive classroom environment outweighed the teacher’s right to free speech. The courts rejected the position of the college based upon the specific criteria of the case, as it did not have a sufficiently disruptive impact on the college. This highlights that “content offensive to some students may be allowed in order to foster intellectual discourse and promote learning” (Smith, 2005, p. 30). Similar to the Tinker v. Des Moines (1969) case, the discussion of disruption is vital to determining the appropriateness of particular topics, words, and ideas. Critical literacy proponents should take note of this legal ramification as critical literacy often implies some level of disruption within the learning process
(Applebee, 1996; Lewison, Flint, & Van Sluys, 2002; McLaren, 1988; Shor, 1987).
Considering the ethical dimensions in the context of this study is important because teaching sanctions one to be “charged with the production and dissemination of knowledge.
In the fulfillment of these roles, faculty must consider what is right, wrong, good, or bad”
(Smith, 2005, p. 39). This raises important ethical considerations for teachers who choose to examine controversial topics or those that incite a more disruptive reaction than possibly intended. For example, concerns about language in some classic literary texts continue to be controversial, such as using the “n-word” relative to teaching history and The
223 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Wendy Kaminer, a lawyer and free speech advocate, argues that there has to be some capacity for distinctions to be made: “It’s amazing to me that they [students who feel offended] can’t distinguish between racist speech and speech about racist speech, between racism and discussions of racism” (Shulevitz, 2015, para. 15).
Kaminer’s position questions whether the discussion of racism is in itself an act of racism.
For ELA educators, this is a significant issue given that many of the most pivotal texts within classic literature are in fact snapshots of injustices and periods of social stratification that are no longer upheld. I have faced this same dilemma when teaching To Kill a
Mockingbird and, when reading aloud, I always skip over the word although students can clearly see it in the novel as they follow along. In this sense, I’m aware of my sensitivity to the term and do not feel comfortable using it. However, there are other offensive terms that
I do feel comfortable with, but I very carefully consider the illustrative or educational value they have in the context of my teaching.
While choices of speech are one issue that teachers contend with, another ethical complexity is the decision of whether or not to share personal opinions. In the case of
Sterzing v. Fort Bend Independent School District (1972), a civics teacher shared his opinion with his class that he did not oppose interracial marriage. The administration received complaints because of his views and requested that Sterzing not teach controversial issues. Sterzing argued that he could not avoid teaching controversial issues as a high school current events teacher. The Supreme Court disagreed with the Fort Bend
Independent School District noting that he could not be fired for raising controversial topics in the classroom and that he has the right to present his personally held opinions to his students in an objective manner. It was further argued that the school did not follow
224 procedural due process but also noted that Sterzing’s approach was somewhat zealous possibly due in part to inexperience. The Court found “his teaching to be proper to stimulate critical thinking, to create an awareness of our present political and social community and to enliven the educational process. These are desirable goals” (Reyes,
1995, p. 46). The Court’s support of Sterzing’s academic freedom highlights the ways in which academic freedom is fundamentally protected in the United States under the First
Amendment based upon the promotion of inquiry and objectivity.
Another valuable case to consider as it most mirrors the tenets of critical pedagogy is the case of Arkansas teacher Mildred Downs (Downs v. Conway School District, 1971).
Downs encouraged her second-grade students to draw and write in a notebook about changes they would personally want to see regarding their overall health, ideas that were intentionally shared with the superintendent of schools. Their ideas included changes to nutritional planning in their school, problems with the water fountains, and an unsafe incinerator. The board objected to this pedagogical initiative and did not renew her contract
(Peterson, Rossmiller, & Voltz, 1978). The court upheld the teacher’s rights and requested that Downs be reinstated noting, “When a School Board acts, as it did here, to punish a teacher who seeks to protect the health and safety of herself and her pupils, the resulting intimidation can only cause a severe chilling, if not freezing, effect on the free discussion of more controversial subjects” (Downs v. Conway School District, 1971, “Discussion and the Law”, para. 33). These actions could be seen as a critical practice because Downs places students’ personal lives and contexts at the forefront by encouraging them to reflect on things that troubled them relative to their own communities. From this reflexive stance, students were empowered to identify possible inequities of power and address these
225 concerns with proposed action-based ends. This emphasizes that critical practices often result in some form of disruption but result in some improvement that is characteristic of many activist-oriented practices. Because the action was directly against the school, it created a conflict of interest since the employee-employer relation required that the teacher demonstrate some level of allegiance the school district. Downs v. Conway School District
(1971) also highlights the ability of critical literacy to identify issues of oppression and to educate students in order to make collective, actionable change. In this case, whether or not
Downs envisioned herself as a critical pedagogue, her actions upheld this philosophy.
Conclusion
These legal cases highlight the complexities of dialogic learning particularly around individuals’ rights to share and argue their personal positions in a public forum. For teachers, this is further complicated by concerns over indoctrination due to their position of authority. I argue that critical literacy educators who explore and encourage politicized dialogic learning in the classrooms should also be aware of the ethical complexities that these dialogues may elicit relative to these historic cases. Each of their outcomes, and the deliberations upon which they were determined, feature many important considerations.
The central conclusion that can be drawn is that the courts value critical, dissonant discourses that truly educate and recognize that it is a complex process. Noted in the case of Sterzing v. Fort Bend Independent School District (1972), the court stated:
A teacher's methods are not without limits. Teachers occupy a unique position of
trust in our society, and they must handle such trust and the instruction of young
people with great care. On the other hand, a teacher must not be manacled with
226 rigid regulations, which preclude full adaptation of the course to the times in which
we live. (para. 28)
Additionally, these cases provide teachers with a general frame of reference that guide how personal beliefs and free speech should be expressed. These complexities are only some of the issues teachers must consider because unique student-centered concerns can add further complexities to this research. Thus critical literacy dialogic learning highlights a number of considerations for teachers including pedagogical authority, perceptions of indoctrination, and legal considerations. Teachers, however, only make up one side of the ELA classroom. Their students also influence the moral and ethical dimensions of the daily intricacies of classroom life and this, too, warrants further exploration.
227 Chapter IX – The Students
Just as teachers have a capacity for ethical awareness in which to assess how their actions and approaches represent particular ethical principles (Campbell, 2018), it is equally important to recognize the moral agency of students. Sockett (2019) argues that classroom ethics are the responsibility of both teachers and students. Classrooms can be viewed as a community of learners within a particular learning environment (Hansen,
2007). The respective age, lived experiences, and interests of students and the subject being studied can require different moral expectations of students. This is an important consideration on the topic of dialogic conflict in the classroom particularly because it impacts how students and teachers react to and engage in dialogic conflict.
Critical literacy classrooms strive for social justice ends. The ELA curriculum encourages investigating complex moral and ethical issues and conflicts and navigating difficult, contentious, and complex issues (Government of Manitoba, 2017a). Students are encouraged to collectively engage in dialogic learning and explore conflictual topics as a means to examining issues of power that students may be part of within larger hegemonies.
Lankshear and McLaren (1993) note that striving for social justice ends entails a need to recognize the possible:
We must maintain recognition of the materiality of the sign as a product of social
forces and relations of power, as a lived embodiment of both oppression and
possibility, subordination and emancipation; in the final analysis, we must reject
any notion of the human subject which seals itself off from its own history, its own
link to the community of multiple selves which surrounds it, its narratives of
freedom; to construct a truly critical literacy, we need to make despair less salutary
228 and economic, social, racial, and gender equality politically conceivable and
pedagogically possible. (p. 415)
Through the examination of the social forces of power and oppression, students can come to recognize themselves as oppressed (Freire, 1970) and can utilize this knowledge to empower themselves as change agents through activist orientations. In the Manitoba context, the proposed new curriculum encourages learners to explore challenging social issues and moral dilemmas in order to explore possibilities for social justice (Government of Manitoba, 2017a). Exponents of critical literacy for social justice argue that youth activism is an important element of action and change, two fundamental goals of critical literacy, since it supports a model that encourages citizenship participation where students organize with other community members as a method of social inquiry for education and justice (Morrell, 2008). In particular, the social justice ends of critical literacy are often associated with youth activism and correlations to a civic deficit amongst youth (Pammett
& LeDuc, 2003). Giroux (2003) states, “an effective democracy [is] informed by a critical democratic education that encourages, rather than closes down, dialogue, critique, dissent, and social justice” (p. 25). In particular, Blackburn and Clark (2007) emphasize the need for educators to move critical literacy beyond the classroom and into activist spaces where change is not simply aligned to the school’s interests. In this sense, critical literacy advances the importance of activist orientations.
Seeking Justice
In Citizen Youth: Culture, Activism, and Agency in a Neoliberal Era (2011), author
Jacqueline Kennelly examines youth activism in relation to Canadian histories of colonization, immigration, neoliberalism, and other issues of concern to young activists. In
229 a yearlong ethnographic study in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal, Kennelly studied self- identified youth activists between the ages of 13 and 29 who were involved in social issues related to poverty, war, globalization and colonialism. Kennelly believes that youth struggle to negotiate their positions within the Canadian nation state because the country is greatly impacted by political ideologies tied to classism, colonialism, racism, and the limiting of individual acts to diminish collective power.
Not all social justice initiatives necessarily benefit student well-being and youth activists often acknowledge burnout and stress due to their feelings of isolation and the social responsibility to ‘change the world’. Kennelly (2011) also notes her hesitancy in coupling terms such as ‘citizenship’ with ‘responsible’, ‘ethical’, and ‘informed’: “These couplets suggest that citizenship might only be taken up by those who take the time to deliberate on all aspects of a social issue before taking action. It certainly does little to inform individuals about their rights and entitlements as citizens within the state” (p. 44) and “represents the continuation of a discursive shift of the burdens of citizenship onto the individual” (p. 45). Kennelly also raises the question of whether or not the promotion of youth citizenship is simply “to placate youth activism into acceptable forms of liberal individualism” (p. 9). This issue is illustrated by the increasing corporate presence in student initiatives and campaigns related to social activism and justice. Me to We, a
Canadian-based social enterprise agency founded by Craig and Marc Kielburger, produces live student events known as We Day that have a significant corporate presence and branding. While Me to We espouses powerful ideas and moral underpinnings related to their social justice ideals, they are nevertheless a corporation entity with financial goals.
Increasingly, corporations are aligning their image and brand to youth activism and social
230 justice campaigns and actively connecting with schools and divisions to promote their programming. Besio and Pronzini (2013) note that this has created a prolixity of moral values:
Corporations transform moral values into something compatible with their own
structures through a variety of different responses: introducing formal ethical
structures (e.g., codes of conduct), initiating value-oriented projects, or developing
informal moral norms, and so on. In some occurrences, morality becomes a mere
facade, while in others it serves as a decision-making criterion and deeply
influences core activities in firms. (p. 297)
From a critical literacy standpoint, students should not only critique issues of power but also those directly and indirectly responsible for upholding particular hegemonies of power. Analyzing issues of social justice through a moral lens can make students aware of the ways in which morality itself can be utilized as a source of power to persuade the uninformed, a common action amongst supposedly globally minded companies and organizations (Gardiner, 2006). An additional concern is that corporately-inspired visions of social justice may not necessarily place individual and community social injustice initiatives at the forefront. This has the effect of moving away from a critical literacy model that upholds student voices and simply provides the illusion of student empowerment.
There are few corporations that actively advertise as social justice entities that directly encourage schools and divisions to partake in their events, particularly in the
Canadian context. However, those that do should be carefully assessed from a critical standpoint. This risk of insidious, outside forces politicizing the classroom is very different from organic approaches in the classroom where student voice their own concerns and
231 interests. In fact, external social justice mandates, particularly from companies, may give students a false notion of social justice and thus create a conceptualization of ‘action’ without actual results or change. This is not to suggest that external agents such as corporations cannot have moral and ethical aims and act as collective change agents, but the same level of criticality must be applied to them as any other.
Students who engage in critical literacy dialogic learning with socially just ends may also find this kind of authentic experience too dissonant. Again, the differences between a highly organized social justice event such as We Day is an entirely different experience. Firstly, it is distanced and students are not part of an actual dialogue, let alone one that is dissonant in nature. Thus while students may agree and strive for socially just ends, critical literacy research suggests that social justice ends are by their very nature dissonant and difficult. Dissonance through dialogic learning in the classroom is valuable but not without some significant concerns.
(In)justice
Dissonant dialogues can occasionally elicit what is commonly referred to in both formal and colloquial manners as microaggressions. Microaggressions have become part of the modern student vernacular and is generally characterized in colloquial terms as a seemingly small action that can elicit emotional or physiological discomfort. While the term originates from critical race theory, it can generally be described as “embedded in small actions—the daily behaviors of gestures, tone of voice, direction of eye contact, meeting protocols, and so on. They are aggressive in that they are experienced by the recipient as marginalizing or disregarding” (Brookfield, 2014, p. 420). While they can be deemed callous (Lilienfeld, 2017) and intentionally aggressive, they may also be
232 unintentional (Sue, 2013). The impact of this research has specifically influenced the process of higher education teaching and learning. Sue (2017) explains why the topic of microaggressions is so complex:
The study of microaggressions is a complex scientific challenge because it deals
with both explicit and implicit bias; explores the lived realities of marginalized
groups in our society; frames microaggressive dynamics as an inter- action between
perpetrator, target, and the external environment; pushes powerful emotional
buttons in the actors; and is difficult to separate from the sociopolitical dimensions
of oppression, power, and privilege. It is more than quantification, objectification,
and logic/rationality. It is a study of powerful emotions, subjective experiences,
biases, values, and beliefs, as well as especially the pain and suffering of
oppression. (p. 171)
Lukianoff and Haidt (2018) question Sue’s position that microaggressions can be an unintentional action:
When Sue includes “unintentional’ slights, and when he defined the slights entirely
in terms of the listener’s interpretation, he encouraged people to make such
misperceptions. He encouraged them to engage in emotional reasoning- to start with
their feelings and then justify those feelings by drawing the conclusion that
someone has committed an act of aggression towards them. Those feelings do
sometimes point to a correct inference, and it is important to find out whether an
acquaintance feels hostility or contempt toward you. But it is not a good idea to
start by assuming the worst about people and reading their actions as uncharitably
as possible. (p. 40-41)
233 This is an interesting point as it emphasizes the importance of one’s mindset when engaging in dialogue. This may also extend to the overall atmosphere of the class. There has to be an initial understanding that both speakers and listeners are approaching dialogues honestly and with a respect towards each other. Eamonn Callan, a professor of Education at
Stanford University, emphasizes that candor should in fact be part of this dialogic process:
I have tried to show that candor is a cardinal civic virtue that any educational
civility regime should seek to foster, and why the hazards of candor can be
mitigated through additional educational measures. Among these is a commitment
to cultivating interpretive charity in the practice of civility alongside intellectual
candor. (2011, p. 18)
Thus there is a presumed respect and good faith that must exist for a candid dialogue that cannot exist if participants are intentionally seeking to find offense. A question that
Lukianoff and Haidt (2018) raise is, “should we teach students to interpret these kinds of things as acts of aggression? If a student feels a flash of offense as the recipient of such statements, is he better off embracing that feeling and labeling himself a victim of microaggression, or is he better off asking himself if a more charitable interpretation might be warranted by the facts?” (pp. 41–42). They suggest that students can share their discomfort about what was said as a form of feedback, but ultimately maintain their own agency because “it is unjust to treat people as it they are bigots when they harbor no ill will.
Doing so can discourage them from being receptive to valuable feedback” (Lukianoff &
Haidt, 2018, p. 42). Perhaps the essential issue here is not necessarily interpretation itself but rather the manner in which we address a perceived injustice. Accordingly, a mission statement or guidelines that establish ‘rules of engagement’ for classroom dialogues could
234 be helpful: for example, a statement that encourages open debate that recognizes the importance of being sensitive to others but, equally, encourages students to recognize that fallibility is inherent to human interaction. Naturally, this is not open invitation for hateful, racist or aggressive speech but a reminder that the complexity of in-the-moment human interaction carries with it the unavoidable risks of misunderstandings and dissonance.
Lukianoff and Haidt (2018) note that the concept of microaggression has highlighted a moral concern, particularly a “shift from ‘intent’ to ‘impact.’ Determining intent is essential to assessing guilt and making moral judgements. We generally hold people morally responsible for acts that they intended to commit” (p. 43). In a 2017 study,
Lukianoff and Haidt found that 58% of college students argued that it was “important to be part of a campus community where I am not exposed to intolerant and offensive ideas”
(2018, p. 48). If this is the general consensus amongst university students, a worthwhile question to consider is, how do high school students feel about intolerant and offensive ideas? As this debate continues, the fundamental question remains: is avoiding offensive ideas the right approach?
Avoidance
It has been argued that avoiding conflict may cause greater long-term concerns: “By encouraging students to interpret the actions of others in the least generous way possible, schools that teach students about microaggressions may be encouraging students to engage in emotional reasoning and other distortions while setting themselves up for higher levels of distrust and conflict” (Lukianoff & Haidt, 2018, p. 51). They also note that the concept of ‘tribalism’ is an important element of this discussion because when “we bind ourselves more tightly to the group, we embrace and defend the group’s moral matrix, and we stop
235 thinking for ourselves. A basic principle of moral psychology is that ‘morality binds and blinds,’ which is a useful trick for a group gearing up for battle between ‘us’ and ‘them’”
(Lukianoff & Haidt, 2018, p. 58). Thus the argument is that while students may collectively agree that they are not open to a dissonant dialogue, is this the ethical decision? Is this the right decision?
Harvard Law School professor Jeannie Suk Gersen wrote an article entitled “The
Trouble with Teaching Rape Law” (2014) for The New Yorker specifically about the triggering that can occur in the examination of the sensitive topic. In response, educators are being encouraged to provide students with trigger warnings, which have the effect of
“offering prior notification of an educational topic so that students may prepare for or avoid distress that is automatically evoked by that topic due to clinical mental health problems”
(Boysen, 2017, p. 164). This is essentially an advanced warning about the content that will be explored to allow them to prepare, or even to avoid, the experience altogether. On the topic, Suk Gersen states:
Now more than ever, it is critical that law students develop the ability to engage
productively and analytically in conversations about sexual assault. Instead, though,
many students and teachers appear to be absorbing a cultural signal that real and
challenging discussion of sexual misconduct is too risky to undertake—and that the
risk is of a traumatic injury analogous to sexual assault itself. This is, to say the
least, a perverse and unintended side effect of the intense public attention given to
sexual violence in recent years. If the topic of sexual assault were to leave the law-
school classroom, it would be a tremendous loss—above all to victims of sexual
assault. (2014, para. 9)
236 While the study of law at the university level differs greatly from the high school classroom, there are transferable elements for consideration by high school critical literacy advocates. Firstly, university students are often first exposed to their prospective areas of study in high school. High school teachers routinely discuss the transition between high school and university in their classroom. In fact, as an English language arts Grade 12 teacher, I commonly discuss the kinds of reading and writing that students will be exposed to in a post-secondary environment as a method of preparing them for the transition. This also includes exploring conflictual topics, complex literary forms, texts requiring intricate reading comprehension, as well as engaging in dissonant dialogues.
Classrooms often provide students with their first exposure to topics or fields of study that they later pursue at the post-secondary level. They are spaces where students can engage in hearing different and alternative viewpoints, complex ideas, and possible solutions (Government of Manitoba, 2017a). Because of this, I would argue that if students are accustomed to recognizing dissonant dialogues and topics as being part of the classroom learning process – as critical literacy pedagogues support – then these topics might garner a different reaction at the post-secondary level. This does not imply that students who are fundamentally “triggered” or deem something to be a “microaggression” can simply be “conditioned” not to react negatively. However, this raises the question of whether or not high schools have some direct impact on students’ capacity to engage in these kinds of dialogues and topics at the post-secondary level. It also raises the question if avoiding conflictual topics and issues does more harm than good to students.
237 Trigger Warnings
Research pertaining to the concept of trigger warnings in the classroom has been emergent and a point of ongoing debate (Wilson, 2015). In one study, Bellet, Jones, and
McNally (2018) found that trigger warnings may in fact threaten a student’s psychological resilience. They additionally note, “Trigger warnings do not appear to affect sensitivity to distressing material in general, but may increase immediate anxiety response for a subset of individuals whose beliefs predispose them to such a response” (p. 140). Thus it is possible that they may create increased anxiety for students and Gainsburg and Earl (2018) found that “trigger warnings increased expectations of negative affective response to warned-of content, elicited avoidance of warned-of content, yet also decreased negative affect for warned-of content” (p. 261). This suggests that these warnings cause different reactions in students, further evidence that the debate over the effectiveness of trigger warnings is unsettled and requires further research.
For critical literacy pedagogues in the high school ELA classroom, there are good reasons to forewarn students of potentially upsetting content. Teachers act in loco parentis; they have a parental-like position of moral and ethical authority and must carefully consider the needs of all students. Where the ethical complexity arises is in the process of weighing what may be deemed a trigger. In the case of law professor, Suk Gersen, the discussion of rape is an obviously sensitive and upsetting topic, and I would argue that an ethically sensitive educator would recognize the delicate nature of this topic and forewarn students accordingly. Conversely, I would argue that not all topics are as simple to assess for potential harm. Bellet et al. (2018) explain that “trigger warnings have been used more broadly to shield members of other disadvantaged groups from a wide range of content,
238 including depictions of classism and privilege” (p. 135). Thus the breadth of what constitutes topics or ideas that are deemed as ‘triggers’ can be extensive and thus places teachers in an ethical predicament of discerning and foreseeing what topics may be negatively impactful.
The majority of research into the topic of trigger warnings and microaggressions is generally examined at the post-secondary level. Nevertheless, I maintain that if these institutions struggle with these topics, it is reasonable to anticipate that the introduction of similar topics at the secondary level will raise similar concerns. This is because critical literacy dialogues focus on the same topics that elicit the discussion of trigger warnings in the first place, topics that are conflictual by their very nature:
Student and parent concerns that conflate discomfort with trauma seem to be
heightened around a set of usual suspects: courses that focus on race, class, gender,
sexual orientation, religion, violence, and politics. This is unsurprising given the
ways we struggle with these issues as a society. We argue that because we struggle
with them as a society, education on these targeted content areas is even more
important. The problem here is that conflating discomfort with trauma also
increases the likelihood that programs and courses addressing these targeted content
areas will diminish. (Flintoft & Bollinger, 2016, p. 26)
Trigger warnings and microaggressions are not the sole domain of pedagogical practices and are deeply connected to the history of injustice. Critical pedagogues have long been engaged in discussions that position the exploration of injustice as a means of envisioning justice. It can be argued that microaggressions are in fact part of a larger concern of epistemic injustice.
239 In Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing, Fricker (2007) explores the complexity of epistemic power structures. Fricker highlights that a central concern with testimonial injustice is risk of eroding an individual’s value:
To be wronged in one’s capacity as a knower is to be wronged in a capacity
essential to human value. When one is undermined or otherwise wronged in a
capacity essential to human value, one suffers an epistemic injustice. The form of
that internal injustice takes specifically in cases of testimonial injustice is that the
subject is wronged in her capacity as a giver of knowledge…When someone
suffers a testimonial injustice, they are degraded qua knower, and they are
symbolically degraded que human. (p. 4)
In this sense, being undermined can greatly impact one’s sense of value and capacity as knower. While structural power is also a component of power systems, most notable in the work of Foucault, power relationships are socially coordinated and therefore one’s identity is directly impacted by social factors particularly when exploring concepts of hermeneutical injustice and testimonial injustice.
Hermeneutical and Testimonial Injustice
Critical literacy focuses on power and injustice and the ability to critique to discern inequities and/or injustices of power that may not be initially visible or acknowledged. The concept of hermeneutical injustice is an inability to recognize one’s own oppression due to inherent marginalization of a particular identity group. For example, without an awareness of hermeneutical injustice, students and teachers may be surprised by the strong emotional response to what some regard as a very small, or micro, incident. Hence the topic of microaggressions within dialogic learning and critical
240 literacy is not simply about perception but also identity. This is important to critical literacy proponents because this can explain why some dialogues may become especially conflictual even if all parties did not intend to generate emotional responses.
Additionally, hermeneutical injustice can lead to testimonial injustice. This can lead to othering whereby an opposing group is characterized as ‘they’ or ‘those people’ and portrayed as overly- reactive, sensitive, or emotional. The concept of testimonial injustice is when an individual’s testimony is not deemed credible due to a prejudice attached to their identity. One way that testimonial injustice is accentuated is through testimonial quieting. Patricia Hill Collins (2000) describes this as an audience’s failure to understand and recognize a speaker as a ‘knower’. Collins has described that simply by virtue of being a black American woman, Collins is systematically undervalued as
‘knower’. Thus in the dialogic process, an inability to recognize the speaker is intrinsically oppressive. From a philosophical standpoint, this parallels Freire’s belief that, “instead of striving for liberation, [the oppressed] tend themselves to become oppressors, or “sub-oppressors” (1970, p. 45). The very structures of their thought has been conditioned by the contradictions of the concrete, existential situation by which they were shaped” (1970, p. 25). Nabolsy (1985) suggests that Fricker’s notion of hermeneutical injustice is not necessarily about how to stop hermeneutical injustice, but rather “how the individual listener can attempt to compensate for the existence of hermeneutical injustice through being a virtuous listener” (p. 267) . This idea suggests that as listeners, we have to recognize our biases and acknowledge our membership to various systems of oppression that impact our ability to be good listeners. The negative result of hermeneutical injustice is denying the validity of another person’s experience
241 which can lead to an erosion of an individual’s sense of self. This is a type of silencing that is explored through Spivak’s (1998) concept of epistemic violence, a form of silencing already marginalized groups. Both hermeneutic and testimonial injustice can contribute to create cognitive distortions that promote the perception of microaggressions.
The ‘Safe’ Classroom
Paulo Freire once stated, “If you don’t command your fear, you no longer risk, and if you don’t risk, you don’t create anything. Without risking, for me, there is no possibility to exist” (Shor & Freire, 1987, pp. 60–61). The social structure of a classroom greatly impacts dialogues particularly when there is an element of risk involved.
One of the most prominent ‘communities’ to which ELA students belong is the classroom. Students have moral agency in the classroom and are part of a community grounded in personal relationships. In the context of the high school critical literacy ELA classroom, personal relationships between students can greatly impact their sense of belonging, comfort, interest, and overall sense of emotional safety to take risks in the classroom. Sockett argues that friendship and trustworthiness are “two connected matters of classroom ethics that are necessary to community activities and personal relationships”
(p. 6). In particular, the dialogic process is greatly shaped by student inter-relationships.
Thus elements like loyalty are central to student relationships (Fletcher, 1993) and can thus impact students’ positions in dialogues. For example, a student may choose to agree with a friend’s position during an in-class dialogue to demonstrate loyalty, since disagreement could be perceived as an act of betrayal. It is important to note however that every
‘friendship’ will have different moral characteristics and expectations and therefore each relationship will have its own particular manner. Thus critical literacy practitioners who
242 engage students in conflictual dialogues must be aware of these relationships and how they impact the dialogic process. Conversely, the “after friendship” periods of students’ moral lives occur when students cease to be friends and are particularly salient because it can cause significant distress amongst particular individuals or larger loyalty groups and potential polarization (Sockett, 2019).
Polarization is a concern that may arise with more contested topics, particularly when students believe that there are two strongly contested positions. As social comparison theory suggests, group polarization is “the result of group members noticing that other members of the group on average have a certain opinion and modifying their own opinion accordingly” (Fantl, 2018, p. 120). On the other hand, persuasive argumentation theory suggests that group polarization “is engagement with valid and novel arguments offered by the group” and that with new opinions, “the direction of opinion will continue to move further toward the extreme end of the spectrum” (Fantl, 2018, p. 121). This may be due in part to a level of comfort that is attained through the dialogic process. Some conversations may become heated but also have the capacity to produce feelings of empathy and understanding. Educators have long recognized the value of classroom dialogues to provide students with opportunities to hear differing opinions, beliefs, histories, and thought processes, but these can often take time to extract. However, there can still exist hegemony in the classroom that may not allow for students to safely state their dissenting position.
This is just one of the many reasons why teachers attempt to create a ‘safe’ classroom.
However, attempts to create ‘safe’ classrooms can be problematic because “attempting to purge the classroom of conflict never creates a ‘safe space,’ for to cleanse the classroom of discord is also to cleanse it of difference” (Colwill & Boyd, 2008, p. 236). One element of
243 this sense of safety includes each student’s view of how they are being perceived by others.
Brown and Levinson (1987) discuss the concept of face as tied to identity, hence the term
‘losing face’ represents “something that is emotionally invested, and that can be lost, maintained, or enhanced, and must be constantly attended to in interaction” (p. 311) and the belief that cooperation is “based on the mutual vulnerability of face” (p. 312). Thus throughout interactions with others, students and teachers attempt to maintain face though politeness. Brown and Levinson (1987) also identified positive and negative politeness strategies, with positive approaches including seeking agreement and avoiding disagreement, while negative strategies include questioning, pessimism, and deference.
When individuals agree with each other, it solidifies mutual respect (Brown & Levinson,
1987). However, when individuals disagree, it may cause anxiety. This kind of social anxiety can result from inappropriate behavior or interactions (Camacho & Paulus, 1995).
The mere process of disagreement, even if polite, can threaten face, particularly for individuals who care about social relationships and often agree more with others than disagree (Chiu & Khoo, 2003). As such, disagreements in the classroom require students to accept the inherent risks of sharing and articulating their ideas.
A valuable text on the topic of dialogic dissonance is Lynne Weber Cannon’s
(1990) article, “Fostering Positive Race, Class, and Gender Dynamics in the Classroom”.
This research is valuable in that it explores the complexity and importance of examining and recognizing power in the post-secondary classroom. Cannon states that a classroom’s social microcosm impacts the balance of power within it:
In group settings like classrooms, members of privileged groups are more likely to
talk, have their ideas validated, and be perceived as making significant
244 contributions to group tasks. Unless something is done to upset the “normative
balance of power” in the classroom, students’ statuses in society at large will be
replicated in class, and members of less privileged groups will continue to remain
silent while the privileged speak. (Cannon, 1990, p. 129)
Cannon emphasizes that for “learning is to take place, it may be best if privileged groups listen more than talk, and others talk more than usual. In other words, to treat people fairly and individually is not to treat them exactly the same” (p. 129). In a list of ground rules for the class, Cannon asks students to describe their racial and ethnic backgrounds and to connect it to something that they are proud of because it places students’ identities at the forefront. Cannon (1990) outlines the following guidelines for in-class discussion:
1. Acknowledge that racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, and other
institutionalized forms of oppression exist.
2. Acknowledge that one mechanism of institutionalized racism, classism, sexism,
heterosexism, and the like is that we are all systematically misinformed about our
own group and about members of other groups.
3. Agree not to blame ourselves or others for the misinformation we have learned, but
to accept responsibility for not repeating misinformation after we have learned
otherwise.
4. Agree not to "blame victims" for the conditions of their lives.
5. Assume that people, both the groups we study and the members of the class, always
do the best they can.
6. Actively pursue information about our own groups and those of others.
245 7. Share information about our groups with other members of the class, and never
demean, devalue, or in any way "put down" people for their experiences.
8. Agree to combat actively the myths and stereotypes about our own groups and other
groups so that we can break down the walls that prohibit group cooperation and
group gain.
9. Create a safe atmosphere for open discussion. If members of the class wish to make
comments that they do not want repeated outside the classroom, they can preface
their remarks with a request that the class agree not to repeat the remarks. (pp. 130–
132)
Cannon adds, “Conflicts arise, ground rules are ignored, and the social hierarchies and mistrust that exist in society at large are often repeated in the class. As the teacher, I have to be ever vigilant and use my power to help achieve our goals” (1990, p. 133). This also highlights the constant awareness that critical literacy teachers must exercise in the classroom in order to adapt to the individual needs of their students to ensure that they maintain a safe atmosphere. This kind of vigilance is especially important when engaging in the discussion of difficult or challenging topics.
Teachers must appreciate the immeasurable power they wield, particularly in their class dynamics, and recognize the crucial role they plan in shaping the dialogic experiences for students well beyond the classroom. It only takes one negative experience to silence a student and compel them to question and doubt their own abilities, stance, and value. This dynamic is greatly influenced by relational interaction and the ability of teachers to know their students and their teaching context. I cannot control what students say but I am obligated to mitigate negative situations and ensure students feel supported, empowered
246 and acknowledged. For these reasons, the newly proposed Manitoba ELA curricula
(Government of Manitoba, 2017a, 2019) that encourage critical literacy dialogues must stress teachers’ responsibility to continually reflect upon the ways they directly and indirectly participate in conflictual dialogues. This is, after all, the foundation of critical literacy: it is not simply the awareness of power inequity that is reproduced by the norms of the status quo, but the acknowledgement of this inequity and a commitment to change. For this reason, I agree strongly with Hayes (2015) who suggests that ‘criticality’ in the classroom, by its very nature, may not necessarily provide an inclusive and safe space, noting that:
the best conversations in the classroom are like the ones outside the classroom
insofar as they are ones in which people feel free to try out thoughts or attitudes
they are not yet certain of—to voice opinions that might but do not yet have the
status for them of beliefs. People will be reluctant to do this when what they can
expect as a reward is a critical attack. (p. 321)
As a proponent of dialogic learning that sometimes becomes dissonant, this is an important consideration as the very act of critical engagement in the classroom makes it inherently prone to attack-like responses. However, Lukianoff and Haidt (2018) argue:
Children, like many other complex adaptive systems, are antifragile. Their brains
require a wide range of inputs from their environments in order to configure
themselves for those environments. Like the immune system, children must be
exposed to challenges and stressors (within limits, and in age-appropriate ways), or
they will fail to mature into strong capable adults, able to engage productively with
people and ideas that challenge their beliefs and moral convictions. (p. 31)
247 They add:
Safetyism is the cult of safety—and obsession with eliminating threats (both real
and imagined) to the point at which people become unwilling to make reasonable
trade-offs demanded by other practical and moral concerns. Safetyism deprives
young people of the experiences that their antifragile minds need, thereby making
them more fragile, anxious, and prone to seeing themselves as victims. (Lukianoff
& Haidt, 2018, p. 32)
The obligation and value of embedding conflict and complexity in the classroom in order to prepare students to face these elements in their lives remain a source of ongoing debate.
Conclusion
The complexities of creating safe classroom learning are challenging but nevertheless the responsibility of educators. Some of the fundamental concerns raised by research in social psychology regarding dialogic learning include the discussion of how far to pursue conflictual issues, what topics are off limits or too controversial, and even the distinction between discomfort and trauma. In reality, these questions inevitably weigh heaviest on teachers who fail to explore these boundaries, and the resulting emotional and legal ramifications can be severe.
Critical literacy dialogic learning highlights the organic nature of dialogue where all topics may not be preconceived or analyzed for their potential triggers. Thus it would be difficult for a teacher to foresee potential issues and discern when to interject accordingly.
In this sense, I would maintain that in preparation for specific content, teachers may have the authority and capacity to prepare students for possible triggers, but it would be
248 increasingly unlikely in the context of open student dialogue that both teachers and students would necessarily foresee what might constitute a trigger or microaggression.
Perhaps most notable is the need to recognize and reflect upon how power defines the classroom space and which teaching strategies most benefit students within that space.
This of course highlights the complexity of teachers’ subjective understanding and, while we desire to do what is best for our students, intent alone is not sufficient. Rather, it is clear that teachers are as fallible as their students, and mistakes will be made. Consequently, empathy, understanding and an honest desire for understanding are required.
There is a potential concern that, as teachers face increased ethical complexity related to their desire to promote critical literacy practices, they will simply avoid the risk and ultimately take a safer, less conflictual approach. I return to Callan’s (2011) position that “social interaction is always fraught with the risk of humiliation or embarrassment.
Our dignity is permanently at risk and, so far as we forget about the risk, it is only because we have come to trust that others will in fact treat us with civility” (p. 10). Can the recognition of fallibility, intention, ability to learn, and desire to seek understanding outweigh our respective fear and sense of harm? I am also reminded of Ellsworth’s (1989) warning that critical pedagogues must directly assess issues of trust, risk, and fear. In order to tackle issues of entrenched power imbalances, these issues must be directly examined by both teachers and students. The attempt to explore important issues with fear of fallibility may render the process moot because it leads to a sense of doubt that can inevitably distance us from the very issues that most need our attention.
249 Chapter X – The Possible
The purpose of this final chapter is to summarize this philosophical inquiry and the main conceptual points of the research as it relates to the five underlying questions of this study. The purpose of this philosophical inquiry was to explore the moral and ethical complexities faced when enacting critical literacy through dialogic learning in the high school ELA classroom. A study of the theoretical foundations and educational outcomes of critical literacy relative to the current and future-proposed Manitoba ELA curricula was also made, not for the purpose of constructing a more rigorous methodology for critical literacy practitioners of dialogic learning practices, but rather to examine the potential ethical complexities that educators might encounter. The recognition of the moral and ethical dimensions of dialogic critical literacy learning and praxis does not imply that awareness alone will ensure one can avoid issues such as dialogic conflict, indoctrination, or even legal concerns. What this research does suggest, however, is that with an increased awareness of these potential challenges, teachers may be better able to assess their capacity to address these obstacles and the importance of examining moral and ethical issues that arise within politicized curricula.
Chapter One introduced the five research questions of this study, clarified the conceptual framework for this philosophical inquiry, and established the purpose of this research study. These questions formed the basis for the ampliative (Will, 1988) nature of this philosophical inquiry.
Chapter Two addressed the unique value of philosophical inquiry relative to this particular study, emphasizing how philosophical inquiry can identify possible ambiguities within critical literacy discourse through a scale of forms process that involves examining
250 hidden or unexamined assumptions of particular schools of thought and questioning educational practices from an ethical perspective. This chapter also discussed the analysis process of this study, how the emergent themes materialized to inform the five research questions, and how I maintained the focus of this study.
Chapter Three examined the historical and theoretical foundations of critical literacy to determine the question: what are the theoretical and philosophical foundations of critical literacy? In defining the terminology, this chapter clarified this specific type of literacy and its connection to other ‘critical’ associations in order to highlight the collective purposes of critical literacy and its praxial ends.
Chapter Four examined dialogic learning through critical literacy pedagogy and identified the foremost concerns arising from conflictual dialogues in classroom. This chapter clarified the different purposes of dialogue and acknowledged the advantages and challenges associated with dissonant dialogues. This study determined that conflictual dialogues are unquestionably valuable but are also difficult to navigate because they are closely tied to student identities and their associated moral underpinnings.
Chapter Five examined moral and ethical theories and their application to certain aspects of critical literacy, including connections to moral reasoning, character development, values clarification, and care ethics. This chapter highlights that conflictual dialogues pertaining to power and politics are inherently tied to morality and, accordingly, moral reasoning and moral judgement are integral to critical literacy processes. I argue that nurturing students’ examination of morality may better elicit the socially just ends sought by critical literacy pedagogues. Simultaneously, this chapter further highlighted the potential complexities that morality dialogues raise and, consequently, the ethical
251 intricacies educators encounter when enacting critical literacy dialogues in the ELA classroom.
Chapter Six provided an overview of the current Manitoba English Language Arts curriculum, its learning outcomes, and compatibility and correlation to critical literacy. It also examined an outline for the newly revised ELA curriculum with its increased focus on critical literacy foundations and purposes. It identified that the newly proposed curricula support critical literacy and emphasize recognizing and analyzing inequities, investigating complex moral and ethical issues and conflicts, navigating difficult and contentious issues, and contemplating actions, viewpoints, perspectives, and solutions (Government of
Manitoba, 2017a). This chapter continued by noting that while critical literacy is not directly addressed in the current curriculum it can be easily integrated into the ELA classroom given the current expected learning outcomes. It also suggested that the new curriculum appears to be moving closer to a critical literacy-based model similar to other provinces that form the Western Canadian Protocol for Collaboration in Basic Education.
This chapter concluded with an examination of the supporting documents that other provinces are currently providing teachers, specific to conflictual dialogues in the classroom, and offered suggestions of how they might conceptually shape Manitoba’s support documents.
Chapter Seven examined the ethical complexities of politicizing the classroom through dialogic teaching and learning, a topic that is of great importance to many stakeholders and thus involves many competing values. It also notes that the complexity of identity politics may be inherent to critical literacy praxis because of its socially-just oriented ends, thus placing increased ethical care and caution in the hands of educators.
252 This chapter also highlighted the importance of the teacher’s role of authority and action
(or inaction) in the engagement of political issues in class discussions. It examined the historical legal complexities that politicization raises within the classroom. This chapter cautions that teachers have to think and act carefully when addressing political topics and remain aware that they may not make the best ethical decisions because of the inherent complexity of politics.
Chapter Eight examined the issue of indoctrination as this was the most prominent issue of the emergent themes relative to conflictual dialogues in an ELA critical literacy classroom. It discussed the concerns relevant to literature in the educational field of literacy studies as well as within the legal context. This chapter finds that while concerns of indoctrination or ethical missteps by teachers carry legal risks, North American courts have made overarching rulings that defend conflict in the classroom and acknowledge the need for dissonant dialogues as a foundation of democracy and education.
Chapter Nine examined the concerns of students in conflict-infused dialogic classrooms including microaggressions and triggers and their respective impact on the dialogic process of learning. This chapter maintains that attempting to create safe classrooms while simultaneously enacting conflictual dialogues may be at odds within the field of education but nevertheless requires ongoing consideration given its prominence in both education and democracy.
The Research Questions
This study focused on five research questions: What are the theoretical and philosophical foundations of critical literacy? What role does dialogic learning play within critical literacy in the ELA classroom? What are the ethical complexities of dialogic
253 learning with critical literacy aims in the ELA classroom? What does moral education research and the scholarship on the moral work of teaching reveal about the ways that critical literacy is dialogically explored in the ELA classroom? What are the ethical implications of conflictual critical literacy dialogues for students and teachers? This study examined the theoretical and philosophical complexities of critical literacy dialogic in the
English language arts classroom including the moral and ethical dimensions teachers face when engaging in conflictual dialogues.
1) What are the theoretical and philosophical foundations of critical literacy?
The research determined that critical literacy is a philosophically-resistant pedagogy and resists becoming a methodology. Since its purpose is interrogating the commonplace, it is abstract, varying, and characteristically conflictual. As such, it is difficult to define in practice since it will vary pedagogically from teacher to teacher and this makes it difficult to provide general guidelines to teachers that clearly separate critical literacy practices into
‘right’ and ‘wrong’ practices. To an extent, this ambiguity has led the notion that critical literacy and skills like critical thinking are synonymous. This raises the question of whether or not educators intend to achieve critical thinking outcomes through the examination of political issues or through actual critical literacy pedagogy that emphasizes change through collective action. This is not a matter of semantics; the pedagogical aims of teachers have significant consequences.
Critical literacy as a catalyst for social justice was grounded in Freire’s codifications as a process of reversing the oppressive and apathetic philosophy of humanity to one that raises consciousness. Critical literacy embeds moral dimensions, evidenced by its emphasis on the moral imperative to side with the oppressed. It is also politicized in the
254 emphasis of collective, social action to promote social ends. These two goals best emphasize the need to avoid overlooking the practice of critical literacy and its capacity to potentially assimilate, systematize, repress, and silence those who question its envisioned ends-based initiatives, particularly when those ends are under the guise of social justice.
The inconsistent, ambiguous and controversial nature of social justice informs its nebulous and increasingly subjective nature. It may also ignore individual liberties and thus potentially alienate students and teachers who do not conform. Surely, critical literacy ends are valuable but the assumption that ends-based actions under the guise of critical literacy are inherently ethical is unsubstantiated. From a professional standpoint, the limited acknowledgement of the potential complexities of critical literacy praxis in the research is suspect given this philosophically juxtaposed concern about the individual stances of students and those of collective action.
2) What role does dialogic learning play within critical literacy in the ELA classroom?
Dialogic learning is an important process of literacy and plays a pivotal and complex role in critical literacy in the ELA classroom. It supports analyticity as an exploratory and empowering process that allows students to practice and improve their oral skills through a cumulative and comprehensive exchange process and determine hidden or unexamined assumptions for a deeper level of understanding. It is a co-constructed social process that supports the elucidation of multiple vantage points and authenticates students’ thinking. Conversely, the reflexive and open nature of dialogues allows for conflicting stances. While conflictual, these dissonant dialogues benefit students through an improved understanding of others and the development of critical attitudes. This requires elements of risk and trust that can prove complex, particularly if teachers are not aware of how their
255 roles impact this process. How teachers approach and participate in dissonant dialogues is crucial; recognizing the inherent risk, various approaches, purposes, and the teacher’s role were of equivalent consequence in the research. Constructive controversy supports epistemic curiosity but highlights ethical concerns including risk, vulnerability, silencing, trust between students and teachers, balance of discerning between how truths and which values are presented, as well as how authenticity is supported or suppressed. Thus dialogic learning is a foundation of critical literacy with some inherently prominent ethical concerns. Clearly, teachers who chose to enact critical literacy practices must understand that there is a risk to critical literacy dialogues in the classroom since they are political in nature, and politics is a complex and polarizing topic. Moreover, this is further complicated by the nature of dialogic learning. This research emphasizes that there are great benefits to students who dialogically investigate complex moral and ethical issues and conflicts, contemplate alternative viewpoints, and share their unique perspectives. This makes learning reciprocal, engaging, meaningful, multifaceted, and impactful, if not perilous.
3) What are the ethical complexities of dialogic learning with critical literacy aims in the
ELA classroom?
In the context of this study, Manitoba Education’s proposed high school ELA curriculum has incorporated a new focus on what appears to be critical literacy aims, including examining multiple sources, exploring for bias, recognizing language as power and agency, language as an empowering and oppressive force, and interrogating texts. It also extends beyond these common critical literacy foundations to include the investigation of moral and ethical issues and conflicts and encourages teachers and students to examine difficult and contentious issues. Other provinces have examined some concerns and
256 considerations for teachers around politicized classroom discussions, but this appears most prominently in Social Studies curricula.
The directive to examine moral and ethical issues and conflicts raises many ethical complexities. For teachers, concerns include the risk of contentious and adversarial dialogues; ethical complexities associated with identity politics and repressive tolerance; issues of teacher authority, proximity, impartiality and neutrality; defensive teaching practices; the silencing of students; and indoctrination in the ELA classroom. The politicized nature of conflictual issues can lead to legal action as a result of conflict amongst students or communities. Courts generally defend the well-intentioned and appropriate actions of teachers but the resulting emotional toll legal proceedings can have cannot be understated and, accordingly, teachers should have an understanding of the potential pitfalls of politicizing their classrooms particularly thorough the dialogic process.
These are the prominent ethical concerns that teachers must attempt to navigate in order to explore conflictual issues with critical literacy aims. These concerns require adequate consideration and examination if teachers are to explore moral and ethical issues and conflicts in the ELA classroom.
For students, ethical complexities include the difficulty differentiating between fact and opinion, the risk of being silenced or discounted, stresses associated with social-justice advocacy, microaggressions, triggering, discomfort, marginalization, and the general emotional toll of dialogic conflict.
There are many positive attributes of dialogically exploring conflictual issue in the classroom, for which I am a proponent, but these concerns underline the vigilance and
257 desire for safety and care that teachers must extend to ensure that these complexities are addressed ethically.
Perhaps the biggest risk is that teachers may consider the abovementioned risks innocuous or, worse, that they can be easily rectified with simplistic, straightforward solutions. The uncritical acceptance of navigating contentious issues in the classroom deserves our professional attention and care. Ironically, the notion that moral and ethical issues are going to be examined in the classroom without first examining them with respect to our own professional manner in embedding these into our pedagogy should be of significant concern to those who recognize and respect the complexity of our professional ethics.
4) What does moral education research and the scholarship on the moral work of teaching
reveal about the ways that critical literacy is dialogically explored in the ELA
classroom?
Teaching is a moral profession. The ethical knowledge of teachers is crucial, and will have a considerable impact on their manner of teaching and their students’ learning. In particular, given the political and social-justice infused nature of critical literacy along with intricacy of dialogic learning, it becomes increasingly difficult to separate discourses of politics from discourses of morality, in particular, moral issues that pertain to conceptualizations of democracy. The research appears to imply that the ethical dimensions of critical literacy learning and teaching are somehow implicit given the lack of examination of how teachers explore and support dialogic conflict.
The history of the moral and ethical dimensions of education highlight many similarities to the values inherent to critical literacy. Critical literacy recognizes the
258 importance of a teacher’s manner of teaching and upholds similar values, such as care, honesty, courage, integrity, compassion, and empathy. Critical literacy also shares many of the same classroom strategies including teachers as caregivers, classroom as community, fostering moral reasoning, supporting a democratic classroom, cooperation, reflexivity, and attempts to navigate and resolve conflicts. Critical literacy supports positive psychology’s focus on improved happiness and similarly encourages cognitive moral development’s exploration of moral reasoning and need for cognitive conflict. Critical literacy emphasizes care ethics focused on the value of relationships, caring as a fundamental human need, listening in an impartial manner, and upholding inclusivity.
Critical literacy also supports domain theory’s notion of moral judgements grounded in moral reasoning and moral imagination’s components of ethical sensitivity, ethical reasoning, and moral imagination. It also upholds the sociopolitical dimensions of democratic classrooms such as openness to divergent ideas, critical analysis and reflection, recognizing the rights of all individuals, and an understanding of both individual and collective capacities. These democratic classrooms also uphold the value of discussing controversial topics and debating public morality.
However, the aforementioned research in the moral and ethical dimensions deviates sharply with respect to critical literacy and the focus that critical literacy places upon political and ideological orientations, particularly the action-based, politicized and social- justice oriented ends that emphasize activist orientations and collective action. The similarity in desired characteristics and dispositions of democratization in the critical literacy classroom and moral research share similar virtues and notions of manner.
However, critical literacy places an emphasis on social justice and activism. This has the
259 capacity to disregard a teacher’s ethical sensitivity to their role in the classroom and those of their students. Thus while critical literacy has moral intent, this does not imply that critical literacy is integrally ethical. Assuming some inherent understanding of the moral and ethical dimensions of critical literacy is problematic given the ethical complexities of conflictual dialogues in the classroom.
5) What are the ethical implications of conflictual critical literacy dialogues for students
and teachers?
There is a unique ethical immediacy that teachers must be aware of due to the nature of in-the-moment dialogic conflictual susceptibility. Teachers have to be continually reflexive of their own perception of classroom dialogues and the philosophy that guides the manner in which they support and effectively manage open dialogues. Teachers involved in dominant discourses may not recognize their own conscious or subconscious notions of power, and this can impact the level of autonomy and authority students can attain in the classroom. Therefore, even if students and teachers believe that they are reflexive of their practices, teachers may deny them access as a result of the way they manage and participate in classroom dialogues. The following considerations are essential for ELA teachers incorporating dialogic conflictual issues in the classroom:
- Teachers must recognize the differences between critical literacy, pedagogy, and
thinking, as each has a unique history and purpose and should not be used
interchangeably.
- Critical literacy practices should be supported with pedagogical methods grounded
in many of the critical literacy frameworks available to teachers, particularly the
Freebody and Luke (1990) four resources model, the Lewison, Leland, & Harste
260 (2008) four dimensions framework model, and Janks’ (2000) four perspectives.
These are adaptable frameworks that can help support critical literacy dialogic
learning in the classroom.
- Teachers should recognize that associations of critical literacy to moral education
are predominantly contained in the shared virtues desired in students but have
fundamentally different histories and trajectories and, despite appearances, are not
synonymous.
- True critical literacy praxis will inevitable raise concerns about the very purposes of
education, examinations and reflections that can be uncomfortable. Dissonance is,
however, inherent in critical literacy praxis and must be accepted, if not welcomed.
- Dialogically-rich classrooms that examine moral and ethical issues, notions of right
and wrong, points of view, dissenting and collective beliefs are powerful and
essential elements of education and should be upheld and respected for their social
and societal value. They can promote virtues including empathy, care, trust, and
honesty.
- Teachers and students must recognize that dialogic learning will unavoidably elicit
negative reactions, conflicting opinions, denial, avoidance, disagreement,
frustration, and indifference. This is unavoidable and requires a considered,
sensitive, and ethical response by teachers.
- A teacher’s manner of teaching is shaped by their philosophy of education,
experiences, context, values, and beliefs and directly impacts student learning.
- Teachers should have an understanding of what constitutes conflictual/controversial
political issues and recognize the differences between settled issues and unsettled
261 issues and pedagogical approaches to support students’ learning.
- Teachers and students must recognize that authenticity is an important element of
identity and impacts learning. Students generally appreciate when teachers share
personal stances on conflictual issues but may take issue with those positions if they
contradict or challenge their personal views.
- The decision to remain neutral on conflictual issues through direct communication
as well as manner may not benefit student learning but may diminish possible
negative consequences of imparting particular beliefs, or being construed as
indoctrination.
- Teachers must acknowledge and understand the risk of indoctrination and reflect on
their practices to determine if they may be knowingly or unknowingly
indoctrinating students and, if so, make the necessary pedagogical changes to
mitigate further influence.
- Teachers should consider if they are adequately prepared pedagogically to engage
students dialogically in conflictual and politicized issues in the classroom and
understand that they are not obligated to engage in such dialogues if they are
unprepared.
- Teachers must recognize that collective social justice-based actions may undermine
students’ individual stances, and just because they have ‘social justice’ ends, does
not imply that the process cannot be unethical, particularly if teachers are imposing
beliefs or actions on students.
262 - Teachers should consider that critical and reflective educational practices may be
curtailed by ends-based motives that may push back upon contested issues and
topics in the classroom.
- Students and teachers should co-construct collective guidelines for in-class
discussions with mutually-endorsed rules of conduct that best support the dialogic
process, similar to the purposes presented by Lynne Weber Cannon (1990). This
can help to reduce the risk of certain negative attributes most associated to
conflictual dialogues in the classroom.
- Students should be aware of the role of dialogic dissonance in learning and the
potential value it can impart in their lives both inside and outside of school. By
emphasizing this point, teachers can reassure students that it is an inherent part of
the process and an inevitable scenario in life and learning.
- Teachers and students should recognize that collective action may not actually
uphold or align to all student perspectives and positions and, as an inevitable
consequence, can reinforce the will of a majority. This occurs because critical
literacy values autonomy and authenticity on the part of students and teachers but
could simultaneously become a form of unexamined indoctrination, or ironically, an
oppressive force against dissenting voices.
This philosophical inquiry also raised concerns about the capacity students have to effectively navigate conflict. Because critical literacy encourages students to become conscious of their historically constructed experiences within power relations, this process is not only conflictual but closely tied to identity and values, both of which can elicit emotional and traumatic experiences that can be difficult to manage in the classroom. To be
263 a critical pedagogue implies an understanding that education can (re)produce inequality and injustice and opportunities for students and teachers to gain critical consciousness can lead to positive transformations. However, teachers who do not recognize these factors may inadvertently create power inequities despite their ambition to be critical pedagogues. As long as curricula continues to embed critical literacy without highlighting its foundation in critical social theory and adequately addresses the role of the teacher, I argue the risk of these unintended power inequities will remain.
Another important implication is that democratization can be attained through dissonant and conflictual dialogic learning. This research suggests that conflictual dialogic learning can support the necessary skills to speak through difference, recognize the inherent nature of living in a world with opposing stances, and navigate these dialogues more skillfully, comfortably, and safely. However, conflictual dialogues can also elicit an antithetical reaction if experienced negatively in the classroom. It may have the unintended effect of eroding open dialogue between students, increasing dissonance, and even causing trauma. Teachers must therefore balance these risks and ethical concerns against the benefits for which critical literacy advocates espouse.
Critical literacy proponents often highlight the value of placing students’ identities at the forefront of learning. Theoretically this appears to be an ethical aim. Students as individuals become the focal point and learning is tailored to them specifically.
Consequently, the transformative impact of critical literacy is more likely to appeal to them since it directly focuses on their lived experience within society. The issues, challenges and opportunities they face in their communities can be directly addressed and they can take action for change. While this works in theory, it is much more difficult to create
264 because it requires authenticity. This concept of authenticity is a prominent theme across the research into the moral and ethical dimensions of teaching as well as critical literacy and dialogic learning. In critical literacy, it is the ability to authentically recognize and reflect upon issues of power and oppression and ability engage in authentic dialogues that build trust and lead to action and social change. In dialogic learning, it is the ability to share one’s stance in an open forum where the exchange of ideas are upheld and valued. Within the moral and ethical dimensions, authenticity brings about an ability to genuinely examine one’s own beliefs and values and determine what we constitute as good and right. It also appears in our ELA curricula. According to Manitoba Education and Training, “English language arts teaching, learning, and assessment are effective when they are purposeful, dynamic, fulfilling, and authentic” (Government of Manitoba, 2017a, p. 9 ). The necessity for authenticity is apparent in all these areas and is essential to building and maintaining relationships with our students.
Throughout this philosophical inquiry, I was frequently enlightened by many of the conceptual ideas that it uncovered but also grew increasingly concerned that the moral dimensions of social justice education in English language arts had not been sufficiently explored in the curricula. Increasingly, teachers are exploring political issues and must also examine the related the moral and ethical implications. Paulo Freire believed that one must command fear to make risks or there is no possibility for creating; his position on risk is that it is ultimately ‘worth the price’ to create change. From the position of a philosopher and theorist, this is empowering and meaningful. I argue that for some teachers, the consequences of these risks may outweigh the benefits, not because the teachers in question are not sufficiently competent, ethical or skilled, but because the intricacies of dissonant,
265 politically-charged and divisive dialogues in the high school classroom are multifarious.
This is further compounded by the ongoing debate playing out at universities throughout
North America about where the boundaries for contentious and opposing ideas should be drawn, to the extent that students should be exposed to them at all.
I concur with Carrington and Luke (1997) who note, “For teachers, the practical problem lies in their inability to predict, with any consistency of outcome or vocabulary, what forms of literate practices — and hence what relevant curriculum selections of texts and discourses, events and genres — will consequentially ‘count’ in students’ subsequent life trajectories” (p. 107). Educators are encouraged to attempt to fill the gap between the quality of dialogue they aspire to and that of what is actually occurring. To suggest that the capacity to speak freely and honestly is not only optimal but also necessary must inherently be guided by an acknowledgment of its simultaneous complexities. While speaking freely can cause “emotional distress, privacy intrusions, reputational damage, and violence provoked in audiences” (Goldberg, 2016, p. 689), it is also the “lubricant that allows the machinery of democracy to function” (Adam, 2009, p. 317). In The End of Education:
Redefining the Value of School, Neil Postman (1995) states:
There is no one who can say that this or that is the best way to know things, to feel
things, to see things, to remember things, to apply things, to connect things and that
no other will do as well. In fact, to make such a claim is to trivialize learning, to
reduce it to a mechanical skill. (p. 3)
This study does not attempt to distil conflictual dialogic critical literacy learning into a best practice or methodology. Instead, it is an earnest call for its protection:
266 Free human dialogue, wandering where the agility of the mind allows, lies at the
heart of education. If teachers do not have the time, the incentive, or the wit to
provide that; if students are too demoralized, bored or distracted to muster the
attention their teachers need of them, then that is the educational problem which has
to be solved and solved from inside the experience of the teachers and the students.
(Roszak in Postman, 1995, p. 27)
The moral and ethical dimensions of critical literacy help us recognize the broader impact and goals of education in our socio-political environment and have a significant and valued role in critical literacy dialogues.
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