Emancipatory Classrooms:

Teaching for Justice Within and Beyond Our Courses

Sarah Pollock, Ph.D.

Lecturer

Texas A&M University--San Antonio

Sociology courses are particularly fruitful sites for developing the knowledge and skills necessary for connecting students to communities in the pursuit of social justice. It is not enough to teach students about social justice; one must also cultivate just social arrangements within and beyond the learning environment. The ramifications of the pandemic made how crucial justice-within-the-classroom is even more evident. Calls for centering students’ well-being, for flexibility and empathy, for acknowledging the widespread effects of the pandemic on students, faculty, and staff appeared across social media and news articles. Holistic approaches to teaching that prioritize learning and well-being are not new: they have a rich history—Paulo Freire’s (1968) and bell hooks’ (1994) work come to mind. Yet, amid the turmoil and tragedy wrought by the pandemic, we shared these approaches with a renewed sense of urgency.

The circumstances of the pandemic shaped how I designed an Honors Justice course in which I sought to guide students in empirically and theoretically grounded emancipatory sociology. In light of both the subject of the course (justice) and the context (the pandemic), as I prepared for the semester, I focused as much on the why and the how of the course as on the what. For any course prep, I reflect with students on the purpose, the why, of the course. Why are we motivated to be in this learning space together? What do we hope to accomplish and learn during and after the semester? What difference will this course make for students, both academically and as members of families and communities? This reflection on the raison d’être of a course manifests in the development of course learning objectives and student’s personal goals.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

Learning should be emancipatory. Researching the social inequalities that plague our society opens some students’ eyes to systemic issues they were unaware of before the course, while for other students it legitimizes and names personal experiences and disparities they are passionate about ameliorating.

However, students often express frustration at the slow pace (or lack) of social change and their feelings of disempowerment: they have acquired a vocabulary to describe the injustices, they can articulate theoretical explanations for the processes that (re)produce the social inequalities, and they have cultivated empathy and a passion for seeking solutions. Yet those same students feel inadequate to do anything to change the problems facing their communities.

Rather than simply providing information about and explanations for social injustice, courses can provide students with the tools to address the social problems about which they are learning. Classes should build practical skills applicable in students’ careers and lives. In Fall 2020, the Honors Justice course students’ ambitions ranged widely: from raising awareness about human rights violations, to combatting racial disparities in medical training, to getting out the vote, to preventing family separation at the border, these students were motivated to change their communities at the local, national, and global levels. Over the course of the semester, students worked on projects both directly related to class as well as outside of their curricular obligations. These included food distribution to local communities during the pandemic, a racial justice curriculum proposal for a local high school, and political advocacy.

In addition to providing tools for studying and enacting social justice, we also have a duty as faculty to ensure that our courses are not perpetuating the very problems on which the courses focus (e.g., racism, sexism, classism). Thus, I designed the course as a collaborative, just learning environment that practiced what we preached. I describe this approach and the course project below. The project served multiple goals: to practice being public intellectuals and problem solvers and to advocate for specific, actionable social change grounded in sociological research and theory. Thus, the project reflected the broader course goals of building empirical and theoretical knowledge with social justice applications while cultivating empowerment.

APPROACH USED:

Throughout the semester, student teams collaboratively researched an aspect of social (in)justice of their choosing. I provided an overview of broad themes accompanied by foundational texts from which students could base their projects. However, in the spirit of cultivating students’ sense of empowerment and self-directed inquiry, teams were encouraged to research topics of their own selection.

Over the course of the semester, teams took turns identifying readings to assign to the class. In addition to synthesizing theories and empirical research on their topic in written reflections, the teams took turns leading class discussion about the causes and consequences of their topic. Using feedback from both instructor and peers, each team developed their understanding of their topic, refined how they communicated that knowledge, and ultimately produced a wiki, website, or blog that communicated this information along with proposed solutions to a broader audience.

The project allowed students the freedom to choose their research topics, engage the class innovatively, and design the project format. Deadlines were flexible and negotiated, as long as there was clear communication about expectations. Students took an active role in shaping the topics of reading and discussion, they determined the pace and focus of class discussion, and practiced project management and teamwork. The students and I collaboratively developed the assessment process for the final project in order to promote transparency and agency. The students’ active role led them to feel invested in the solutions they proposed. Thus, this teaching technique built a foundation for students’ future social justice work.

In students’ end-of-semester reflections, they wrote enthusiastically about how they took ownership and control of their learning, practiced communication skills, and learned how to implement dissemination tools. Most importantly, students said that the course provided a needed community amid the pandemic.

APPLICATION:

This project demonstrates a student-centered teaching practice that has practical and liberatory implications within and beyond the classroom. This team-based, active learning course design is aimed at upper-level courses of fewer than 25 students but could be adapted for larger courses.

REFERENCES:

hooks, bell.1994. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge.

Freire, Paulo. 1970. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Herder and Herder.

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