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This dissertation revises the historical narrative of critical pedagogy in college writing classrooms. It argues that the key principles of critical pedagogy, first articulated by Paulo Freire in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, were practiced by a number of pedagogues as early as the eighteenth century. It examines the teaching practices of these men and shows that they anticipated the methods of critical pedagogy. This dissertation spotlights the need to reinterpret the history of critical pedagogy and to select a wider lens through which to understand the current pedagogical scene. Chapter I defines critical pedagogy as method and explains the Freirean project. Chapter II locates parallels between critical pedagogy and the process and expressive pedagogies of the late 1960s and early '70s. Specifically, it argues that the works of Peter Elbow and Donald Murray embody the principles of critical pedagogy. Their emphasis on the epistemological power of language, for example, prefigures the theoretical foundation upon which Freire constructs his critical methodology. Chapter III argues that the pedagogical advancements of I. A. Richards in the early twentieth century anticipated the teaching methods of critical pedagogy, especially insofar as they established student-centered writing classrooms. Richards's attempts to place student interpretations at the center of the course situate his pedagogy more comfortably among contemporary approaches to writing instruction like critical pedagogy than it does among the formalist approaches to which he is generally linked. Chapter IV argues that Isaac Watts and Philip Doddridge, two eighteenth-century educators, employ teaching methods that parallel contemporary critical pedagogy. Foremost, Watts and Doddridge create participatory learning environments that center on practical subjects. They are among the first educators to teach in the English vernacular and to supplement the traditional classical curriculum with new learning. Chapter V examines the historical contexts in which these preludes to critical pedagogy emerge and shows that Murray, Elbow, Richards, Watts, and Doddridge taught at times when educational access was expanding. It argues that their pedagogies developed in an effort to address classroom diversity and to discover strategies for bringing people into dialogue with each other about the world.

This thesis explores a pedagogical enquiry that has transformed the way I think and the way I teach. I used a variety of critical and theatre theories to frame my enquiry and for four years consecutively, visited a non-government organization (NGO) in India that uses theatre as an alternate pedagogical tool. I reflected upon the methodological differences between the theatre practices of the NGO and my practices. I then turned my enquiry inward to consider how my learning informed my teaching practices. I then created an alternate theatre project for some students in the American Midwest with Ashok, an artist from India. Ashok spent twelve days training the students in what I refer to as action theatre, while I coordinated, observed and reflected. This theatre is a form of social activism; it is designed to provide a forum for the students to express their socio-political views and raise individual and collective social awareness in the process. After the training period, the students presented a play using these theatre methods. They engaged in discussion with their audience directly after their play. After the training period, Ashok returned to India. He took on the role of mentor and informant to my ongoing enquiry. My enquiry then shifted from an introspective one to a practical one. Some of the students who wished to do so continued creating plays in this fashion. I took over the leadership of the group at their school. A new theatre troupe was created and I used the concepts learned at the NGO and from Ashok in an American suburban context. The theatre troupe created plays for three years. When I moved back to Canada, the troupe stopped its operations. Some students in the group continued activist work using art as a medium by finding other opportunities. I turned my enquiry inward once again to reflect upon how these processes have changed the way I think and the way I teach. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2010-01-11 12:23:08.053

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The nature of this study is two-fold. Firstly, it is a critique of the ontological assumptions implicit in the neo-Kantian intellectualism which dominates philosophy of mind and cognitive science. As such, it is based upon the criticism against external causalism developed in the last three decades by the Critical Realists in the Anglophone world and some accounts of the history of science and philosophy on the continent. On this basis, the study proposes a materialist approach to the mind which brings together Marxian sociocultural theory of the mind and cognitive science's neurocomputational model. Thus, human beings are conceived as both a social construction and a formal device which can and must be accounted for in terms of productive efficiency rather than any kind of external causality. This study focuses on the materialist ontology of dynamic processes and the embodied nature of thinking, particularly on dialectics as a mediation through language of the internal processes and the external world, and on the actual relevance of Marx's notions of 'passion' or affects and 'practical consciousness'. Secondly, this thesis also studies the nature of the mind in relation to the life of the body, preliminary to a future Ethics whose aim is to consider the form in which passions are used for the political purposes of producing and maintaining, with the manufactured consent of the multitude, authoritarian social formations. Some of the features of such an 'Ethics of Self-valorization' are discussed here. It opposes the transcendental option, considered to be based on a notion of causality which leads it to present the forms of jurisprudence and other ego-ethnocentric discourses as the rational forms. Similar ontological options impede this doctrine from considering the productive role of passions, which are conceived merely as pathological events to be policed by reason and the categorical power of the law. Therefore it does not allow the kind of analysis of the potential of passions that this study aims to make possible.

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Background: Obesity is associated with conditions that may affect Canadians’ health status and strain the health care system. Obese individuals are subjected to stigmatization. Most public health programs to date promote weight loss. However, weight loss is rarely sustainable. Insight must be gained into the embodied, lived experiences and lifestyles of ‘target’ populations and their perceptions of and priorities concerning health and wellbeing to develop public health programs that enhance lifestyles and health. Purpose: The purpose of my research was to use critical ethnographic research methods to explore obese individuals’ perceptions of health and obesity and the impact of these assessments, as well as personal weight trajectories, on obese individuals’ health perceptions, lifestyles, quality-of-life, and behaviours. Methods: This study involved one- year ethnography. Data sources included field notes and repeated (every 3-4 months), audio-taped, semi-structured, qualitative interviews with research participants. Subsamples included obese and formerly obese individuals who were 1) pursuing weight loss to achieve health goals, 2) attempting to maintain weight loss, and 3) attempting to get/stay healthy through diet and exercise but were not concerned with weight loss. Participant observation occurred at sites identified by participants as essential to their embodied, lived experience. Results: Three major themes emerged: the importance of function to health and quality-of-life; compulsion, addiction, and the need for validation; and social impacts of various weight trajectories and perspectives. Participants recounted multiple ways in which their ever-fluctuating bodies and related bodily attitudes profoundly affected their social lives and the degree of social acceptance they experienced in coping with their bodies, participants often described highly compulsive food, dieting, and fitness behaviours and a constant search for validation of their health-related endeavours. Significance: The dominant discourse regards obese individuals as ill. This perspective may produce disempowering public health initiatives. To achieve sustainable benefits for Canadians’ quality-of-life, a greater understanding of what constitutes health and wellbeing for obese individuals, and how such factors may change over time and differing circumstances, is essential. This insight will contribute to a salutogenic and holistic approach to health, particularly in populations that may feel stigmatized as a result of health issues.