EDUC 218 Critical Race Pedagogy in Elementary Urban Schools
In this course, the students will understand that unlike traditional perspectives of elementary education that claim to be neutral and apolitical, critical race pedagogy views all education theory as intimately linked to ideologies shaped by power, politics, history, and culture. Given this view, schooling functions as a terrain of ongoing struggle over what will be accepted as legitimate knowledge and culture. In accordance with this notion, critical pedagogy must seriously address the concept of cultural politics, both legitimizing and challenging cultural experiences that comprise the histories and social realities that, in turn, comprise the forms and boundaries that give meaning to student lives. This course specifically addresses youth, elementary age, and related school-based pedagogies that represent status quo content, and assessments and instructional practices that empower students rather than reinforce inequities.This course will provide an option for students to conduct 15 hours of fieldwork to analyze and evaluate the current state of urban education, as well as see transformational models that are possible, learning elementary pedagogical techniques with the participating neighborhood children who are elementary age.