Reflexivity

(A) How might your position or social location (class, race, gender, age, etc.) affect the way you approach this work?
As humans beings we are the result of our genetic heritage as well as our environments. Therefore, the way we interpret and interact with the world is interrelated to our social structures. Our society has inequitable values which favor some people over other. For example, as an able body, lightly pigmented, heterosexual male, I have privileges which were assigned to me without any effort from my part. In other words, I did nothing to earn these privileges, similarly to the oppression others feel because they may not share these characteristics. On the other hand, as a short stature, non-attractive, Latino immigrant, I also know how it feels to be oppressed for superficial characteristics I cannot control.

Our "positionality" influences all aspects of our research endeavors. This short video shows how positionality is like eating a layered cake (it is separate layers, until you eat it - then it all mixes together):

It is important to appreciate how our values (shaped by society and our experiences) can influence the type of questions we ask, the research methods we select, the data collect and even how we interpret the data. We need to examine our epistemological and ontological grounds in order to explore our research ideas; otherwise, we are likely to inadvertently reproduce the inequities of an unjust society.



B) This is a brief response to the Zeus Leonardo 2004 article
(1) Some important takeaways:

• Critical Social Theory (CST) is a multidisciplinary framework which holds great potential for helping students (people) to improve unfair social structures. 
• CST looks at education as a shift from knowledge transmission to knowledge transformation.
• Criticism of current ideologies and structures is essential for CST: "In quality education, criticism functions to cultivate students' ability to question, deconstruct, and then reconstruct knowledge in the interest of emancipation."
• CST positions the teacher as an "intellectual or cultural worker".
• Under CST, quality education encourages students to become aware and subsequently work against social injustices. 

(2) Three discussion questions from
The beginning: Given the historical influences in the early 20th century, how did the Frankfurt School manage to construct such a strong criticism of social structures and yet not fundamentally challenge the rise of Nazis?
The middle: In the article, Leonardo writes: ""quality education begins with a language of critique". I wonder about the practicality of this sequence of events for educating children. Do students need a fundamental/basic level of understanding about schooling/society before they can begin to critically analyze the world? In other words, do children need a basic "construction" of knowledge before they can begin to deconstruct and reconstruct the world?
The end: When Leonardo write about the utopic thinking, I wonder whose idea of utopia he is imagining? Specifically, should we consider that the ideals of utopia are based on cultural/historical factors?

(3) Ideas, concepts, arguments, or passages to unpack, clarify, or dig deeper into.

Several times throughout the text several "Buddhist" ideas/terms are used. For example, "enlightenment" (page 15), and the "process of liberation" (page 16). I wonder if these philosophies influenced the development of critical social theories.