In thinking about my theoretical framework, I find myself wondering about how and when it will all come together. I remember the “aha” moment when I first understood that my academic interests were in fact valid areas of research. Reading Freire was enlightening - education made human! Furthermore, finding out that people were using Freire’s ideas to guide and conduct research, inspired me. Since that first semester in the doctoral program I have known that “Critical Pedagogy” is the set of lenses that I want to use in my research. However, when considering a theory as a researcher, one also has to think about the methodologies that are aligned with the core principles of the theory. Herein lies one of my biggest hurdles, how align my desire to use critical pedagogy with the years of training in the “hard sciences”.
During my years as an undergraduate and graduate student, I was indoctrinated into viewing the world in a positivist way: the world can be known and the laws of the universe cannot be broken. These believes were contradictory to the fact that I knew, felt, and suffered from an unjust society that often reminded me that I (being an ugly, short, hairy and smelly Latino) was overstepping my role in the social ladder. I rarely paid attention to this discordance between science and society since I was taught that science is value-free.
However, I now know better! I want to explore how science instead of being an extension of the oppression of some people, can be a tool for empowerment. However, with my own limitations and habits of mind, I have tried to design an experiment (as scientists tend to do) rather than using the tools normally associated with critical theory (such as qualitative interviews).
So I find myself trying to accommodate my old habits of mind and my new understandings of how the human world works, and the hundreds of readings I have completed have built an arsenal of theories - but I have not yet figured out how to make them gel! It has to happen, but I wonder how and when this will happen!
By December of 2015 I already had some inclinations towards critical theory - even before I had a
name for it. In fact, the following passage from the “What is education?” paper, already included some components of a critical analysis of the state of education in the United States. I wrote:
“Political discourse over the last few decades has blamed education for underpreparing the working force in our country. The National Commission on Excellence in Education (NCEE) published a powerful report in 1983 titled: A Nation At Risk. This report’s goal was to improve the workforce by “raising standards,” but this goal was not based on any data that correlated school achievement and the strength of the economy. The insidious results have not been the improved educational outcomes that afford all students access to great education. Instead the consequences are the increasing demonizing of public school faculty and administration, an increased reliance on standardized testing, and the partial and growing privatization of educational endeavors. The policies that ensued after A Nation At Risk use a narrative that exploits the results of social inequalities in order to create a sense of panic and discombobulation. They also
have in common a narrow view of the problems that public education faces. Many of the ideas about our “failing” school system are based on misinterpretations of data which do not take into account the complexities of the problems that affect our schools (Ravitch, 2014).”
After a more critical analysis using critical social theory, I now believe that a deeper exploration of the intent and purpose of public education should be considered. This is my updated version:
“Public education serves the purpose of ensuring the recycling of social classes. In the United States most people from the upper classes do not educate their children in public schools - and even those that do, ensure that their public schools are favored in every way. Public schools are therefore, instruments of induction and discipline for the poorer people in this country. In this way, educational policies that may appeal to our common sense (with their token statements and misleading titles like “No Child Left Behind”), are extensions of a classists ideology that benefits from social reproduction. For example, the scandalous language used by the “A Nation At Risk” report from 1983, is just one powerful strategy
used by the free market to push its agenda. As if the only purpose of education was to create a group of employees, education was attacked and in response, disciplined by legislature. In turn, the resulting laws and systematic programs use criteria that hides the invidious nature of neoliberalism and make a deflated attempt to address the symptoms of social inequity rather than the causes.”
When I first began the doctoral program I had no idea that those issues and ideas that had been ruminating in my head, were valid areas for research.I had anecdotally seen the power of teaching science in a liberatory way - students were asking revelatory questions about the world, and
ultimately about their place in the world. With that in mind, I read researchers’ theories and methodologies but I could not find a true fit with my own ideas. Luckily, this last semester I came across Dr. Daniel Morales-Doyle (University of Illinois at Chicago) and his theory of “Justice-centered science pedagogy.”
Justice-centered science pedagogy (JCSP) is a theoretical framework aimed at addressing the social oppressive system. This framework combines ideas of traditions of critical pedagogy and culturally relevant pedagogy in order have students not only achieve academically but more importantly to position themselves as transformative intellectuals [thinking about science and social justice issues].
In order to science education to be a conduit for social transformation, it must be anti-oppressive and empowering. In this way, the two main tenets of JCSP are:
Culturally relevant pedagogy: this is Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings description of the work of effective teachers of African American students. Ladson-Billings (1995) defines culturally relevant pedagogy as “rest[ing] on three criteria or propositions: (a) students must experience academic success, (b) students must develop and/or maintain cultural competence, and (c) students must develop a critical consciousness through which they challenge the status quo of the current social order” (p. 160).
Critical Pedagogy: Paulo Freire describes the goal of education as culminating in Conscientização - the process by which people come to understand themselves as capable of improving their reality by disposing of oppression. In this way, people must become aware of the historical and political conditions that created the present inequitable social circumstances. Freire believed that education can be a tool of oppression if it is done as the simple transmission of knowledge selected by the teacher [ banking style of education, that focuses on technical skills associated with economic development]. On the other hand, education can be liberating as long as people by increase their praxis, “the action and reflection of men and women upon their world in order to transform it” (Freire, 1970/2001, p.79).
For Morales-Doyle, JCSP has as the ultimate goal to create “transformative intellectuals” by having students learn about, understand, and work with social justice science issues. Students must see themselves as capable of leading social transformation and teachers must see these students as the people who can help us imagine alternate mechanisms for social change.
Freire, P. (2001). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Continuum. (Originally published in 1970)
Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). But that's just good teaching! The case for culturally relevant pedagogy. Theory Into Practice, 34(3), 159–165. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405849509543675
(a) In her 2011 article, Dr. Cindi Katz presents an interesting and thought-provoking theory for analyzing the current trends and causes of social injustices. Katz uses powerful and targeted language to make her points. For example, terms like “symptomatic silences”, “naturalized struggles”, “braided class”, “disposable futures”, “cannibalizing labor”, and “thick bloody integument” are all indicative of the visceral response she targets in her readers.
Katz’ theory of unjust social reproduction describes three major components:
1) Neoliberal capitalism and its overaccumulation crisis. Within this constituent, Katz focuses on how responsibility has shifted from the state to the individual, which enables blame for poverty to be designated to the “self-sufficient self.” Furthermore, dispossession (which leads to social reproduction) is accomplished via privatizing common resources.
2) Childhood as spectacle, is the term that Katz uses to explain that under the neoliberal agenda, childhood is seen as “a commodity, as ornament and as waste.” In this sense, children have little value in their present state.
3) Children as waste. There are several ways in which children are wasted: school to prison pipeline, the militarization of youth, and extremely/debilitating labor.
To me, the most significant and eye-opening component of Katz’ theory is the explicit connection between children’s play time and the potential change of society. Since children play in ways which are imaginative and therefore question world structures, there are opportunities for children (which eventually will grow up) to recognize that ALL social constructs are also made up and flexible. She writes: “Playing at something has a fugitive or fleeting aspect that can spark a recognition that even the original is made up - a performance - and might be made different.” Lastly, I find myself in complete agreement with her theoretical lens through which childhood with its “revolutionary imagination” is a pivotal time of promise rather than its current appreciation as waste.
(b) As a researcher, I am interested in science education as a conduit for social justice. When Katz describes children’s play as an avenue for rethinking social constructs (and therefore, reality for humans) I see a parallel with science education which holds true potential for changing students’ ideas about our world. In thinking about the significance of challenging social constructs by using science, I am reminded of Carl Sagan when he wrote: “Every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist, and then we beat it out of them. A few trickle through the system with their wonder and enthusiasm for science intact.” As well as Neil Degrasse Tyson when he said: “a scientist is just a kid who never grew up.” Both of them capture the essence of curiosity and wonder - both essential components of playing. Analyzing the ways in which Katz’ ideas connect with my research interests, I can connect the wasted potential of my students with the social reproduction of classes. Science with its specialized language and demands for submission while learning it, is usually oppressive to the type of students I serve. On the other hand, if students can appreciate that scientific knowledge is not culminating, but instead ongoing and dynamic, then students can begin to see that they too can utilize its approaches to not only understand the natural world, but also the social constructs which dictate much of our daily lives.
Lastly, Katz warning about wasted childhoods: "We are all in this together and the loss of anyone's creativity or creative potential is a tragedy of the commons, a loss to our common future." is a reminder that we don’t need women and minorities in the sciences just because it is politically correct, but more importantly, we need them because they have a different experiential filter which will see problems and solutions that are out of the reach of those people (wealthy white men) who traditionally have had access to science.
Here is Dr. Tyson addressing women in science:
However, I now know better! I want to explore how science instead of being an extension of the oppression of some people, can be a tool for empowerment. However, with my own limitations and habits of mind, I have tried to design an experiment (as scientists tend to do) rather than using the tools normally associated with critical theory (such as qualitative interviews). 
