Understanding curriculum as lived: teaching for social justice and equity goals

Abstract

This article explores the experiences of two university instructors who taught, on separate occasions, the same graduate course in education that was designed to encourage graduate students (the majority of whom were White teachers) to critically engage issues of difference, race, Whiteness, color-blindness and privilege in their classrooms. Leanne (untenured, Black mixed-race and middle class) and Susan (tenured, White and middle class) discuss their experiences and critical reflections related to teaching the course. In particular, the authors draw on Aoki's phenomenological concept of curriculum as lived to illuminate how the bodies in a classroom, the ideologies and beliefs of individuals, as well as structural (both macro and micro) forces at play influence what evolves as the curriculum. By interrogating key tensions, contradictions and challenges that arose when teaching the course, the authors point to how an understanding of curriculum as lived can enhance efforts to teach for social justice and equity goals.

Keywords:

• curriculum as lived
• critical pedagogy
• critical reflexivity
• social justice education

Notes

1. For clarity, we use the term ‘student' to refer to those (mainly teachers) who attended our graduate course and use the term ‘pupil' to refer to children in elementary and/or high school.