CITATION AND COPYRIGHT INFORMATION:
Cite as: Rajendram, C. P. (1999, May). Critical pedagogy: A methodology. Paper presented at a non-divisional workshop held at the meeting of the International Communication Association, San Francisco.
© Christlin P. Rajendra (1999).

ESSENCE OF PROJECT:
Critical pedagogy is a contemporary topic in media education. The very existence of media education is justified by critical pedagogy. Media education was created with the promise of making students more critical in their encounter with the media. However, full success has not yet been achieved. Taking Paulo Freire as the most successful critical pedagogue and as a theoretician, I am trying to find a methodology that would enable me to enact a critical pedagogy as enunciated by Freire and further complemented and refined by feminist pedagogical theory and practice. Freire himself was not keen on methodology. Being a charismatic teacher, he was more interested in formulating the elements of a critical pedagogy from his own teaching experience. He wrote very clearly about the theory of critical pedagogy. But as to putting his ideas on critical pedagogy into practice, he left that to the ingenuity and talents of individual teachers. The aim of this project is to find a methodology accessible to all teachers who want to work according to Freirean pedagogical practice. In this process of finding a methodology, I have used Sense-Making theoretics and methods. Sense-Making Methodology has been used specifically to relate students’ experiences to the curriculum and to place the student in the position of the author for any changes that may ensue.

THE REASONS I TOOK THIS ROAD:
Coming from a developing country, I was inspired by Freirean theories of underdevelopment and change as presented in his seminal work, “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”. However I found it difficult to apply his theory in practice. When I was introduced to Sense-Making, I found on both theoretical and methodological fronts much of what Freire has been trying to do with regard to conscientization. During the many in-depth interviews that were done in Dr. Dervin’s classes, using Sense-Making Methodology, there were moments of awakening in the interviewee, and these seemed to come so effortlessly. Some were self-interviews on the issue of sexual harassment and others were about films seen by the interviewees. The interviews focused on bringing the issues and media products to the level of experience of the students. In the self-interviews we, the students, came to a deeper realization of the issue as part of our life experience. The interviews on films also led the interviewees to a much more critical understanding of the media product. My other interest was media education. I found plenty of talk about critical pedagogy in media education. Even though much was said about the urgency of finding a critical pedagogy, there was very little evidence of its presence in ‘Media Education’. I thought Sense-Making could offer a bridge between Freirean theory and practice and I decided to use the Sense-Making approach to implement a critical pedagogy in Media Education. Finally, what gave me the impetus and assurance in my venture was the example of Dr.Dervin in her own teaching practice. I had taken several classes with her and besides, she was my advisor. In my observation and experience of her classes, I found Sense Making to be very much the life force in her teaching practice. In her approach with the students and the subjects, she used Sense-Making naturally, as part of her self expression. Therefore, her teaching practice made me see the possibilities of Sense-Making theory and Methodology.

THE BEST OF WHAT I HAVE ACHIEVED:
There were some very revealing interviews with moments of conscientization. Even the written interviews provided a connection between the student and the curricula. It gives me encouragement that I’m on the right path. The Sense-Making interviews, especially the in-depth ones, give a new level of understanding of media products. This was true with films and all other media products.

WHAT HAS BEEN HELPFUL:
Freire’s and other writings listed in the references have helped me to clarify concepts of critical pedagogy. There has been so much written on critical pedagogy that one could get lost in theoretical pursuits. Judith Williamson’s article had provided the entry point for this project by pointing out the gap in the critical pedagogy of media education, namely the missing link between the students’ experience and their knowledge. The Sense-Making interviews conducted by some students in Professor Dervin’s class have been helpful to identify the potentials of this approach with regard to media. Some of the time-line interviews about movies have pointed to an alternate mode of film criticism and teaching. Finally this whole project would have been impossible without the generous collaboration of the students and teachers in media education classes.

WHAT I HAVE STRUGGLED WITH:
The most difficult part was dealing with hundreds of interviews and managing the data analysis although the Procite software made the task a little easier. The other difficulty was finding media education classes. There is no such thing as media education in the High School curriculum in the United States but some may be found in England, Canada and Australia.

WHAT WOULD HELP NOW:
Translations of curricula and other educational materials into Sense-Making terminology would be of help. In the process of translation, the curricula themselves could change. Sense-Making Methodology could be operative not only in pedagogy but also in the very selection and formulation of the curricula. Reconceptualization of the learner in media education according to Sense-Making theoretic is central to this project.

PROJECT ABSTRACT:
Media education has spoken of critical pedagogy from the time it came into existence. Critical is the operative word that brought Media Education into the limelight. However, there has been very little that is critical in media education practice. It has not succeeded very much in bringing students towards a critical awareness concerning the media. Students know the history of television and have learned to “deconstruct” entire TV programs, but still do not make connections to their own conditions. The dissertation suggests that it is imperative that an analogous situation in the lives of the students be made problematic in order for them to grasp the ideological relation between “text” and “reader”. This dissertation sets out to contribute to media education, specifically toward an altered media education pedagogy, by giving the learner a voice in the media education curriculum. By drawing insights from observations of current media education practice, this dissertation addresses the two major gaps that a new critical pedagogy for media education confronts: first, little empirical research has been done on how learners evaluate their media experiences and, as a result, empirical grounds for understanding how media education might be altered does not exist other than as a general call for change towards dialogic learning; second, methodology for involving the learner in media education practice has not been developed.

This study focuses on conceptualizing the learner in media education through Freirean and feminist critical pedagogies. A methodology for integrating the learner and the learner’s life experience in the curriculum development and pedagogical practices of media education was developed and tested using Sense-Making interviewing and participant observation. Sense-Making interviewing and text analysis have been used to assess current media education practice in two high schools and in one university. In addition, a field experiment involving the use of Sense-Making as a formalized means for giving a voice to learners was implemented in a media education classroom. Although there is some awareness about the need for integrating student experience in current media education curricula, in practice, no concrete methods have been developed to do so. Some of the present innovative methods hold the potential of leading us towards a new student centered critical pedagogy. The field test proved that even in its most rudimentary format, Sense-Making can provide a method for integrating student voices in media education practice today.

REFERENCES:
(For references to works by Dervin and colleagues, see Dervin’s writings: Chronological listing.)

Freire, P. (1973). Education for critical consciousness. New York: Seabury Press.

Gore, J. M. (1993). The struggle for pedagogies: Critical and feminist discourses as regimes of truth. New York: Routledge.

Maher, F. A. (1985). Pedagogies for the gender-biased classroom. Journal of Thought, 20 (3).

Weiler, K. (1991). Freire and feminist pedagogy of difference. Harvard Educational Review, 61 (4), 449-74.

Williamson, J. (1981/82). How does girl number twenty understand ideology? Screen Education, 40, 80-87.

OTHER MATERIALS BY THIS AUTHOR ON THIS WEB SITE:
See:  http://communication.sbs.ohio-state.edu/sense-making/AAauthors/authorlistrajendram.html