Socially constructing learning space: communication theory and pedagogy for social justice

ABSTRACT

Social justice as a theme and orienting mechanism in communication education continues to gain momentum and traction without a sustained conversation of what it is (exactly), what it includes, how it manifests in classrooms, or how to define the practice of it. This project provides an introductory look at the practices of self-identified social justice educators in the communication discipline who are actively engaged in the process and practice of teaching for social justice across the core curriculum. An examination of course materials (syllabi, course descriptions, reading assignments and other documents) illuminates how instructors build a foundation for these courses by establishing the socially constructed nature of our reality and the constitutive (changeable) nature of our social world. The end goal of which is to reshape the values and structure of society toward more equitable communicative interactions.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• communication pedagogy
• critical pedagogy
• social justice
• activism

Notes

1. Jo Sprague, “Communication Education: The Spiral Continues,” Communication Education 51 (2002): 340.

2. Cassandra L. Book, “Communication Education: Pedagogical Content Knowledge Needed,” Communication Education 38 (1989): 315–21.

3. Ibid., 318.

4. Gustav W. Friedrich, “Instructional Communication Research,” Journal of Thought 22 (1987): 4–10.

5. See, for example, Lawrence R. Frey, W. Barnett Pearce, Mark A. Pollack, Lee Artz, and Bren A. O. Murphy, “Looking for Justice in All the Wrong Places: On a Communication Approach to Social Justice,” Communication Studies 47 (1996): 110–27. See also, Julia R. Johnson, “Universal Instructional Design and Critical (Communication) Pedagogy: Strategies for Voice, Inclusion, and Social Justice/Change,” Equity & Excellence in Education 37 (2004): 145–53. See also, Stephen J. Hartnett, “Communication, Social Justice, and Joyful Commitment,” Western Journal of Communication 74 (2010): 68–93.

6. Lee Artz, “African-Americans in Higher Education: An Exigence in Need of Applied Communication,” Journal of Applied Communication Research 26 (1998): 210–31.

7. Katherine G. Hendrix, Ron L. Jackson II, and Jennifer R. Warren, “Shifting Academic Landscapes: Exploring Co-Identities, Identity Negotiation, and Critical Progressive Pedagogy,” Communication Education 52 (2003): 177–90.

8. Leda Cooks, “Pedagogy, Performance, and Positionality: Teaching about Whiteness in Interracial Communication,” Communication Education 52 (2003): 245–57. See also, Judith N. Martin, and Olga I. Davis, “Conceptual Foundations for Teaching about Whiteness in Intercultural Communication Courses” Communication Education 50 (2001): 298–313.

9. Henry A. Giroux, “Spectacles of Race and Pedagogies of Denial: Anti-black Racist Pedagogies under the Reign of Neoliberalism,” Communication Education 52 (2003): 191–211.

10. Kristen P. Treinen and John T. Warren, “Antiracist Pedagogy in the Basic Course: Teaching Cultural Communication as if Whiteness Matters,” Basic Communication Course Annual, 13 (2001): 46–75. See also, John T. Warren, “Whiteness and Cultural Theory: Perspectives on Research and Education,” The Urban Review 31 (1999): 185–203. See also, John T. Warren, “Doing Whiteness: On the Performative Dimensions of Race in the Classroom,” Communication Education 50 (2001): 91–108.

11. Morva McDonald and Kenneth M. Zeichner, “Social Justice Teacher Education,” in Handbook of Social Justice in Education, eds. William T. Ayers, Therese Quinn, and Dave Stovall (New York: Routledge, 2009), 595–610.

12. Lee Thayer, “Communication: The Human Context,” in Communication in Everyday Life, ed. Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz (Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1989), ix.

13. Ibid., ix.

14. Julia R. Johnson, The Social Construction of Whiteness: Teacher Power, Personhood and Performance in the Classroom. Unpublished doctoral dissertation (University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1997).

15. Vernon E. Cronen and W. Barnett Pearce, “Grammars of Identity and Their Implications for Discursive Practices In and Out of Academe: A Comparison of Davies and Harre’s Views to the Coordinated Management of Meaning Theory,” Research on Language and Social Interaction 25 (1991): 37–66.

16. Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz, Communication in Everyday Life (Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Company, 1989), 20.

17. Ibid.

18. Ibid.

19. Pseudonyms are used to identify all research participants’ remarks, and preserve their anonymity.

20. Jo Sprague, “Expanding the Research Agenda for Instructional Communication: Raising some Unasked Questions,” Communication Education 41 (1992): 13.

21. Linda C. Lederman, Communication Pedagogy (Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Company, 1992), 5.

22. W. Barnett Pearce, “Communication and Social Construction: Claiming our Birthright,” in Socially Constructing Communication, eds. Gloria J. Galanes and Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2009), 33–56.

23. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Continuum, 1970).

24. Jo Sprague, “The Goals of Communication Education,” in Teaching Communication: Theory, Research, and Methods, eds. John A. Daly, Gustav W. Friedrich and Anita P. Vangelisti (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum Associates, 1990), 19.

25. Ibid., 22.

26. Ibid., 25.

27. Robert J. Garmston and Bruce M. Wellman, How to Make Presentations that Teach and Transform (Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1992).

28. Leda Cooks, “Pedagogy, Performance, and Positionality: Teaching about Whiteness in Interracial Communication,” 245–57.

29. Lee Thayer, “Communication: The Human Context,” x.

30. Elise L. Pineau, “Teaching is Performance: Reconceptualizing a Problematic Metaphor,” American Educational Research Journal 31 (Spring 1994): 3–25.

31. Augusto Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed (New York: Urizen Books, 1979).

32. Jo Sprague, “The Goals of Communication Education,” 35.

33. For example, see Joe L. Kincheloe, Critical Pedagogy Primer (New York: Peter Lang, 2005).

34. Judith Lorber, “The Social Construction of Gender” (4th ed.), in Reconstructing Gender: A Multicultural Anthology, ed. E. Disch (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2006), 113–20.

35. PCARE, “Fighting the Prison-Industrial Complex: A Call to Communication and Cultural Studies Scholars to Change the World,” Communication and Critical Cultural Studies 4 (2007): 402–20.

36. See Bobbie Harro, “The Cycle of Socialization,” in Readings for Diversity and Social Justice, eds. Maurianne Adams, Warren J. Blumenfeld, Rosie Castañeda, Heather W. Hackman, Madeline L. Peters, and Ximena Zúñiga (New York: Routledge, 2000), 15–21.

37. Diane J. Goodman, Promoting Diversity and Social Justice: Educating People from Privileged Groups (New York: Routledge, 2011).

38. Joe L. Kincheloe, Critical Pedagogy Primer, 23.

39. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

40. W. Barnett Pearce, “Communication and Social Construction: Claiming Our Birthright,” 54.

41. Lee Thayer, “Communication: The Human Context,” ix.

42. W. Barnett Pearce, “Communication and Social Construction: Claiming Our Birthright,” 54.