Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The study aims to investigate academic writing at the University of Namibia and intends to explore whether a critical, meaningful and experiential pedagogy in EAP that enhances voice and agency in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) can be engendered in the Namibian EAP classroom. Moreover, it aims to investigate the experiences and perceptions of first year EAP students regarding the current EAP pedagogy at the University of Namibia. The study aspires to generate an understanding of the components students find difficult when they engage in academic essay writing. It provides a holistic and profound understanding of what critical, meaningful and experiential pedagogy is and wish to propose the process-genre writing approach as tool to a critical, meaningful and experiential pedagogy to teaching academic writing. The study draws it theoretical underpinning from critical pedagogy as postulated by Freire (1973) and Canagarajah (1999). This research supports the premise that the English language classroom is a cultural space where various agendas are negotiated and contested and explores the complexity of language pedagogy in the English classroom (Canagarajah, 1999). Moreover, this study is based on the premise that pedagogies are not received in their own terms but are rather appropriated on different levels in terms of the needs, interests and values of the local communities (Canagarajah, 1999, p.121-2). As research design, the study adopts an exploratory design using both qualitative and quantitative data. Besides, the study uses SPSS analysis and written error analysis methodologies. While the former provides an understanding of EAP students’ perceptions and experiences regarding the current EAP pedagogy at the University of Namibia, the latter examines the components that EAP students find difficult when they engage in academic essay writing. As instruments, the study uses a semi-structured questionnaire and academic essay administered to 200 EAP first year student- participants. The findings indicate that the current EAP pedagogy at the University of Namibia does not promote experiential, meaningful and critical learning nor does it enhance voice and agency in the EAP classroom, thus a critical, meaningful and experiential EAP pedagogy that enhances voice and agency can be engendered in the Namibian EAP classroom. The findings also indicate that EAP students find the use of APA referencing skills and the use of discourse markers the most difficult when they engage in academic essay writing. Furthermore, the literature that I reviewed for this study critically exposed how practices in EAP and institutional policies stifle voice and agency in the EAP classroom. The entire process of this study has generated some insights that can advance our understanding of a critical, meaningful and experiential pedagogy in EAP and academic writing. These insights are: (1) A need to enhance EAP educator’s critical awareness, (2) We must minimize students’ text-appropriation, (3)A need to re-conceptualize and decriminalize the concept of plagiarism in EAP, (4) A new approach to teaching APA referencing in EAP academic writing, (5) A need to renegotiate voice and agency in academic writing, (6) Writing is a process not an event, (7) We need to move towards an appropriate critical, meaningful and experiential pedagogy in EAP. The study proposes the process-genre academic writing approach as a pedagogy towards a critical, meaningful and experiential EAP pedagogy in teaching academic writing. All in all, the study upholds the premise that a critical, meaningful and experiential EAP pedagogy that enhances voice and agency can be engendered in the Namibian EAP classroom.

The current study explored coach training and experience, and individual identities and roles that youth sport coaches hold as well as how they enact social justice within youth sporting communities. Using convergent mixed-methods design, critical consciousness (Freire, 1970) was the theoretical framework and method of analysis for this study. Forty-seven participants responded to this open-ended survey; 85.1% of coaches reported coaching part-time, 59.5% of the sample were volunteer coaches, and 33% of coaches had less than 1–3 years of coaching experience. Findings revealed a majority White (69%) and Majority Male (61%) sample of youth sport coaches and described coaching identities were categorized into multiple and intersectional (Women of Color; n = 5) identities. Emic coding through cross-analysis of open-ended questions suggested a deeper understanding of coaches’ connection to community in relationship to how coaches described identities. These were coded as Coach-Centered Coaching , Limited Connection, or Synthesizing Connection. Furthermore, community-based sport coaches were engaging in and enacting social justice within youth sporting communities in ways that mirror critical consciousness patterns of dialogue, reflection, and action. The theoretical implications of this study expand the application of societal roles, more specifically the role of a youth sport coach to the theory of intersectionality. This study supports past literature that found that youth sport coaches are dissatisfied with the education they receive; thus these findings inform suggestions for how to make coaching education more relevant and accessible. Empirically, study findings suggest that the underresearched area of youth sport coaches’ identities may be related to the depth of connection coaches have to community, impacting the holistic developmental outcomes of participating youth athletes. Practically, this study delivers a critical pedagogy framework for community-based coaching education that blends the personal (identity and role development) and professional (coaching specific knowledges). Results of this study can inform future empirical research of youth sport coaching and intervention development that theoretically considers the integration of intersectionality with critical consciousness.

Current events and social movements aimed at bringing awareness to oppressed groups have reminded us that the United States has still not achieved justice and equality for all. Social and political tensions have become inescapable in our increasingly connected world. Therefore, students need to learn about diverse ways of knowing and being in a pluralistic society. Since publishing and education companies compete for business, the amount of digital and print resources available to teachers can be overwhelming. Because a vital component of a multicultural education includes diverse materials that authentically portray views and experiences from a wide range of cultures, traditions, and values, it is necessary to critically analyze the curricular content that teachers are expected to use in their classrooms. The purpose of this study is to analyze the literature that is included in district-approved book lists for public schools to determine how these texts support the principles of multiculturalism and multicultural education in sixth-grade classrooms. The tenets of critical multicultural analysis (CMA) guided this critical content analysis. Because teachers in these districts are limited to choosing books from approved lists to read with their students, the texts for this study were selected from approved literature lists that were provided by three public schools in North Texas. Although previous research on curricula and textbook analysis is available, little of that research analyzes approved literature lists in public schools. Since school districts are preparing to teach changing demographics and are striving to become more equitable, this study can offer insight into how the chosen texts align with broader district goals for meeting the academic, social, and emotional needs of each student.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur lärare i ämnet samhällskunskap förhåller sig till normkritisk pedagogik, samt hur de uppfattar att deras förhållningssätt präglar den samhällskunskapsundervisning som sker. Syftet är också att undersöka vilka faktorer som påverkar lärarnas förhållningssätt till normkritisk pedagogik. Normkritisk pedagogik handlar om att visa sätten som olika normer interagerar och skapar obalanser i makt samt om hur dessa normer kan utmanas inom undervisningssammanhang (Bromseth & Darj, 2010, s. 13). Samhällskunskapslärare som undervisar i årskurs 7-9 har besvarat en kvalitativ enkät om deras förhållningssätt till normkritisk pedagogik. Samhällskunskapslärarnas svar har analyserats utifrån flera bakgrundsfaktorer för att undersöka eventuella variationer i deras förhållningssätt utifrån deras bakgrund. Dessa bakgrundsfaktorer var ålder, kön, yrkeserfarenhet, behörighet och ämneskombination.  Samhällskunskapslärarna har till stor del positiva uppfattningar av begreppen normkritik och normkritisk pedagogik, vilket medför att majoriteten av samhällskunskapslärarna arbetar med normkritisk pedagogik i hög utsträckning eller i mycket hög utsträckning. Studien visar även en viss relation mellan ålder och kön som bakgrundsfaktorer för i vilken utsträckning som samhällskunskapslärarna arbetar med normkritisk pedagogik. Ett resultat var dessutom att de studerade samhällskunskapslärarna anser att deras personliga bakgrund har påverkat deras förhållningssätt till normkritisk pedagogik i högre utsträckning än styrdokumenten. Faktorer som samhällskunskapslärarna själva menar har påverkat deras förhållningssätt är deras personliga bakgrund, didaktiska reflektioner, samhället och eleverna. Samhällskunskapslärarna nämner emellertid inte styrdokumenten som en viktig påverkansfaktor. Majoriteten av samhällskunskapslärarna menar dessutom att deras förhållningssätt till normkritisk pedagogik påverkar deras samhällskunskapsundervisning. Studien indikerar även en viss relation mellan kön som bakgrundsfaktor och i vilken utsträckning som samhällskunskapslärarna menar att deras förhållningssätt till normkritisk pedagogik påverkar deras samhällskunskapsundervisning. Flera samhällskunskapslärare betonar emellertid att andra faktorer än deras förhållningssätt påverkar deras val av ämnesinnehåll och undervisningsmetoder. Dessa faktorer är styrdokumentens centrala innehåll och/eller den aktuella elevgruppen.  Studien visar även att det är möjligt att styrdokumenten, lagar och institutioner kan påverka samhällskunskapslärares förhållningssätt till normkritisk pedagogik utan deras medvetenhet. Studien visar emellertid även att majoriteten av samhällskunskapslärarna menar att deras personliga bakgrund påverkar deras förhållningssätt, vilket i sin tur påverkar den konkreta samhällskunskapsundervisningen. Styrdokumenten, diskrimineringslagen och Skolverket som institution fungerar därmed som ramar som påverkar och reglerar samhällskunskapslärares förhållningssätt till normkritisk pedagogik och deras samhällskunskapsundervisning. / The purpose of this essay is to investigate how teachers in the subject of social studies approach norm-critical pedagogy, and how they perceive that their approach characterizes the social studies teaching that takes place. The purpose is also to investigate which factors influence the teachers’ approach to norm-critical pedagogy. Norm-critical pedagogy is about showing the ways in which different norms interact and create imbalances in power and about how these norms can be challenged in teaching contexts (Bromseth & Darj, 2010, p. 13). Social studies teachers who teach 7-9 graders have answered a qualitative questionnaire about their approach to norm-critical pedagogy. The social studies teachers’ answers have been analyzed on the basis of several background factors in order to investigate possible variations in their approach based on their background. These background factors were age, gender, professional experience, eligibility and subject combination.  The social studies teachers have to a large extent positive perceptions of the concepts of norm criticism and norm-critical pedagogy, which causes the majority of the social studies teachers to work with norm-critical pedagogy to a high extent or to a very high extent. The study also shows a certain relationship between age and gender as background factors for the extent to which the social studies teachers work with norm-critical pedagogy. A result was also that the social studies teachers believe that their personal background have influenced their approach to norm-critical pedagogy to a greater extent than the steering documents. Factors that the social studies teachers themselves believe have influenced their approach are their personal background, didactic reflections, the society and the students. However, the social studies teachers do not mention the steering documents as an important factor. The majority of the social studies teachers also believe that their approach to norm-critical pedagogy affects their social studies teaching. The study also indicated a certain relationship between gender as a background factor and the extent to which the social studies teachers believe that their approach to norm-critical pedagogy affects their social studies teaching. However, several social studies teachers emphasize that other factors than their approach influence their choice of subject content and teaching methods. These factors are the central content of the steering documents and/or the students.  The study also shows that it is possible that the steering documents, laws and institutions can influence social studies teachers’ attitudes to norm-critical pedagogy without their awareness. However, the study also shows that the majority of the social studies teachers believe that their personal background influences their approach, which in turn affects their social studies teaching. The steering documents, the Discrimination Act and the Swedish National Agency for Education as an institution thus function as frameworks that influence and regulate social studies teachers’ approach to norm-critical pedagogy and their social studies teaching.

A decline in the number of vowed religious who teach and administer in Catholic high schools has placed the responsibility for transferring the founders’ Charism, the traditional mission and identity of the schools, in the hands of lay educators. This study examined how one Catholic independent single-sex high school established programs and methods to transfer the founders’ Charism to its lay educators and students in the areas of social justice, diversity, and social and political awareness. The researcher collected data about Charism transference by interviewing five adults selected as a purposive sample and conducting focus groups with 15 students selected on a nominative basis. Additional research included prolonged researcher emic observation and an analysis of school documents and archives; the data were codified and an emergent analysis of the data was performed. The analysis focused on social justice, diversity, and social and political awareness at the school. Informing the analysis were the theories of Catholic Social Teaching, critical pedagogy, and liberation theology. The emergent analysis identified that the school institutionalized the founders’ Charism, established an atmosphere of care for others in the areas of social justice and diversity, and promoted awareness of feminine identity and a sense of students as leaders, as well as an understanding of social justice and diversity issues. However, factors including social reproduction, social capital, cultural capital, and class complicated the transformational praxis of action in the areas of social justice and political and social awareness.

As a committed social justice educator, I share in this dissertation a theoretically informed instructional autoethnography of my time teaching and researching as a Language Arts and Speech teacher across two different public high schools and two different school years. My story of learning to embody the values and practices of progressive teaching arises from the central research questions: "How can I, a self-identified progressive Language Arts educator committed to social justice, learn to implement critical, democratic, responsive, and holistic pedagogy as a public high school teacher in this particular region at this time in U.S. public education? And, within these particular schooling cultures, what aspects of these schooling environments support or inhibit my ability to perform as a progressive educator?" Responding to critiques of public schooling policy and practices, my work is grounded in theoretical commitments of progressive education articulated by the critical pedagogy of Paulo Freire and those North American educators who have brought his libratory praxis forward into what I call connected, social justice pedagogy.

This study explores the teaching practices and labor conditions of media and communication adjunct faculty at three universities. Since the late 1960s, the number of faculty who are part-time and contingent is increasing and adjuncts are now more than 70% of college and university faculty (AAUP, n.d.). In this study, I examine the neoliberal university’s reliance on the teaching labor of part-time faculty and interrogate the use of adjunct labor for skills-based, vocationally oriented elements of the media and communication curriculum. The history of higher education, the literature of teaching and learning, and the theoretical frameworks of Bourdieu’s practice theory and Freire’s critical pedagogy situate this qualitative study of adjunct faculty teaching practices and labor conditions. A multi-method approach includes textual analysis of course syllabi and university documents; eight interviews with administrators, department chairs, sequence heads, course directors, and university leadership; three interviews with union activists; eleven interviews with current or former adjuncts; semester-long participant observation of teaching practices of thirteen courses taught by nine adjunct faculty; and three student focus groups with nineteen total participants. This study reveals media and communication adjuncts as key members of the academic community who apply student-centered practices and who are responsible for important elements of the curriculum, and at the same time, marginalized as a flexible, on-demand, and disposable labor force that serves the neoliberal university. This study offers insights to improve the labor conditions of adjunct faculty. I conclude that the COVID-19 global pandemic and the disruption of higher education’s normal tempo reveals a changing higher education landscape with threats of financial exigency and increased precarity for all faculty. / Media & Communication

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<p><strong>ABSTRACT</strong></p> <p>This dissertation is a philosophical inquiry into the pragmatics of emotion as an inherent dimension of the learning self (Ellsworth, 2005). This inquiry first establishes the socio-political context regarding emotional responses to critical forms of pedagogy currently rising across the United States. Secondly, this inquiry explores philosophical conceptualizations of emotions as pedagogical within the fields of public pedagogy, affect theory, and arts-based educational research, as well as the paradigmatic contexts underlying these philosophies. Finally, this inquiry “thinks-with” (Jackson & Mezzei, 2017) these conceptualizations by enacting an affective pragmatic inquiry, centering emotions and embodied experiences of learning through my own neurotypicality as pedagogical inquiry via an arts-based empirical component, consisting of my enrollment in a community pottery class over the course of 40 weeks. I advocate for the need to reconsider the current paradigm around critical forms of pedagogy toward a pragmatist paradigm that uses emotions and value systems of learners to facilitate ethical pedagogical <em>response</em>-abilities (Haraway, 2016) for what to do, pragmatically, with complicated knowledge about social problems that result in ideological and axiological impasses. </p>

A growing number of gay and lesbian children attend Catholic schools throughout the United States; and an untold number of gay and lesbian children in Catholic schools are experiencing harassment, violence, and prejudice because of their sexual orientation or gender non-conformity. Whether due to their size, strong sense of community, or making special considerations for vulnerable students, Catholic schools seem to be the best equipped to address these issues, but all of the research points to such schools enacting policies of silence and suppression. This study specifically explores why Catholic teachings on sexuality and social justice have may have been unable to compel Catholic schools to do more to understand and support gay and lesbian children. In addition to looking at traditional Catholic teaching, this project also engages non-traditional approaches to scholarship and theology, with an eye towards creating a new theoretical framework that can serve as the basis of a new pedagogical space within Catholic schools in which gay and lesbian children can affirm both their sexual identity and their Catholic identity.