Vulnerability: self-study’s contribution to social justice education
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Date
2014
Authors
Knowles, Corinne
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Faculty of Education, University of the Free State
Abstract
Teaching, as a social justice project, seeks to undo and re-imagine oppressive
pedagogies in order to transform teachers, their students, and the knowledge with
which they work. In this article, I argue that self-study can contribute to social justice
in a number of ways by, for instance, making the sometimes limiting norms that
frame teaching and learning visible; inviting my own vulnerability through peer and
student reflections and feedback, and noticing the important relationship between
ontology and epistemology in teaching and learning. One means to avoid the narrow
way in which self-study might apply to only one person’s practice is to use theory to
legitimise it and make it more broadly applicable. In this study, I use Judith Butler’s
ideas relating to vulnerability in order to explain the way in which my teaching and
learning is framed and to show how normative frameworks that define teaching
can be expanded to be more inclusive. I use excerpts of peer and student feedback
in order to demonstrate how vulnerability, reconfigured, can lead to powerful new
knowledge.
Description
Keywords
Vulnerability, Social justice education, Judith Butler, Self-study
Citation
Knowles, C. (2014). Vulnerability: Self-study’s contribution to social justice education. Perspectives in Education, 32(2), 89-101.