Abstract
Teaching is a very complex endeavor. Embedded within this complex environment are issues of power, culture, ethnicity, and race. When teachers and students come together, in the classroom, some of these issues become visible and others remain invisible. Attempting to make influences on teaching and learning visible is one of the steps toward developing a practice framed by conscientização. Ms. Cook, the teacher of this story, is empowering herself and her students; through critical reflection that serves to deneutralize educational acts by recognizing they are embedded in issues of culture, ethnicity, politics, power, and, race. Classroom based research must be more inclusive and indeed cognizant of the mediating macrostructures that teachers deal with everyday. For example, Goldberg and Muir Welsh describe some of the students as being Latinos. In doing so, they adopts a third person as opposed to a first person view of these students. A first person view can acknowledge a dialectical relationship between race and ethnicity.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Apple, M. W. (2000). Official knowledge democratic education in a conservative age. New York: Routledge.
Davis, B., & Sumara, D. (2006). Complexity and education. Inquiries into learning, teaching and research. Mahaw, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Freire, P. (1978). Pedagogy in process: The letters to Guinea-Bissau. New York: The Seabury Press.
Freire, P. (1996). Pedagogy of hope: Reliving pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: The Continuum Publishing Company.
Gallard Martínez, A. J. (2009a). Complexity and the universe of education. Forum on Public Policy Online, Summer 2008 edition (January 2009). Retrieved from http://forumonpublicpolicy.com/summer08papers/archivesummer08/Complexity and the Universe of Education.pdf.
Gallard Martínez, A. J. (2009b). We are more different than alike: Latinos/latinas-hispanics. In W.-M. Roth & K. Tobin (Eds.), World of science education: North America (pp. 353–368). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Habermas, J. (2001). Justification and application: remarks on discourse ethics. (trans: Cronin, C.). Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Know Gangs. (2009). Retrieved Feb 9, 2009 from http://www.knowgangs.com/gang_resources/profiles/ms13/.
Koestler, A. (1967). The Ghost in the machine. New York: Macmillan.
Matute-Bianchi, M. E. (2008). Situating ethnicity and patterns of school performance among immigrant and nonimmigrant Mexican-descent students. In J. U. Ogbu (Ed.), Minority status, oppositional culture, and schooling (pp. 397–432). New York: Routledge.
Sheridan, M. B. (2005). Salvadoran president hails US work plan. Immigrants urged to renew benefits. Washington Post, p. C01. Retrieved Feb 9, 2009 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59873-2005Jan8.html.
Somers, M. R. (1999). The privatization of citizenship: How to unthink a knowledge culture. In V. E. Bonnell & L. Hunt (Eds.), Beyond the cultural turn: New directions in the study of society and culture (pp. 121–164). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Weis, L. (2008). “Excellence” and student class, race, and gender cultures. In J. U. Ogbu (Ed.), Minority status, oppositional culture, and schooling (pp. 222–239). New York: Routledge.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Gallard Martinez, A.J. Dignifying the educational process through conscientização. Cult Stud of Sci Educ 4, 733–738 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-009-9191-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-009-9191-8