A critical pedagogy of place and the critical place(s) of pedagogy

Abstract

The notion of place‐based education as grounding student learning in the local raises important questions about what constitutes the ‘local’ in a now closely interconnected world and what constitutes an educational ‘place’ when places of learning are shifting, as both new virtual sites emerge and old physical ones, including schools, lose some of their significance. In response to Gruenewald’s proposal to blend place‐based education with critical pedagogy as traditions whose respective emphasis complements the other’s limitations, I identify some tensions and remaining limitations but disagree with Bowers’ critique that a critical pedagogy of place is an oxymoron. Instead, I argue that these two traditions can be productively juxtaposed whereby their junctures and disjunctures can be revealed and used as a pedagogical space for authentic environmental and cultural learning by engaging students in constructing thick descriptions (as Bowers advocates) and critical analyses, both historically and contemporaneously, of the places they inhabit.

Keywords:

• critical pedagogy
• place‐based education
• environmental learning
• globalisation
• local
• thick description

Notes on contributor

Bob Stevenson is an Associate Professor in and former Chair of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, USA. In addition to environmental education, his research interests focus on the theory and methodology of action and collaborative research, the role of research in teacher and administrator professional development, and school reform in the context of globalization.

Notes

1. Opposing or contradictory ideas are also treated as complementary from the ancient Chinese perspective of Yin and Yang under the principle that ‘all phenomena have within them the seeds of their opposite state’ (Vare and Scott 2007).