Five Black Women Teachers Critique Child-Centered Pedagogy: Possibilities and Limitations of Oppositional Standpoints

ABSTRACT

The data presented illuminate a pedagogical stance held by five African-Caribbean Canadian women teachers who teach in a predominantly black elementary school. The author examines their standpoint on teaching literacy as they critique what is commonly called “child-centered” pedagogy. She uses their engaged vision as a means to discuss the limitations and possibilities of oppositional “minority” teacher standpoints in the mainstream. The author links their conceptual orientation to emergent work on feminist standpoint epistemology and discusses the teachers' positions as peripheral subjects both in research and in teacher practice.