{"id":11115,"date":"2023-06-01T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-01T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/altc.alt.ac.uk\/blog\/?p=11115"},"modified":"2023-09-21T11:27:43","modified_gmt":"2023-09-21T10:27:43","slug":"anti-oppressive-pedagogies-in-online-learning-with-maria-migueliz-valcarlos-notes-from-arlt-sig-march-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/altc.alt.ac.uk\/blog\/2023\/06\/anti-oppressive-pedagogies-in-online-learning-with-maria-migueliz-valcarlos-notes-from-arlt-sig-march-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"Notes from ARLT SIG 9th March 2023 webinar –\u00a0Anti-oppressive Pedagogies in Online Learning with Mar\u00eda Migu\u00e9liz Valcarlos"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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by Dr Teeroumanee Nadan, Chair of ALT’s Anti-racism and Learning Technology Special Interest Group<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This blog was originally posted on 23 April 2023 on Dr Teeroumanee Nadan’s blog teeroumaneenadan.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The \u201cAnti-oppressive pedagogies in online learning: a critical review<\/a>\u201d (https:\/\/bit.ly\/3KwiAO9<\/a>) paper had been the subject of discussion in a few previous ARLT SIG<\/a> events and email exchanges in the past, and it was with much pleasure that I had the opportunity to invite Mar\u00eda Migu\u00e9liz Valcarlos to join us to share her perceptions around anti-oppressive pedagogies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upon request of our guest to not record the session for a more authentic engagement with the participants, I thereby provide in this blog post a short summary of the session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Summary of Question & Answer<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Questions 1-6 were based mostly on previous conversations I have had with Mar\u00eda in previous meetings, followed by questions from attendees. So happy reading and most importantly happy understanding! Note<\/strong>: This is not a word-to-word recollection of the discussion but rather a summary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q1. What has been the motivation behind your research?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Mar\u00eda highlighted the gaps she observed during her own interactions in the education sector. She found there was a need to explore how educators were using anti-oppressive pedagogies in online learning. Whilst there are many theoretical and conceptual papers, there are very few practical papers to which practitioners can relate to e.g. what does it mean in the class to draw on critical pedagogies?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our guest touched upon Paula Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed<\/a>” (https:\/\/bit.ly\/43gPqbY<\/a>) philosophy, it is to be noted his pedagogies extended to feminism, antiracism, and anti-Blackness as well. Mar\u00eda also referred to Bell Hooks’ works “Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom<\/a>” (https:\/\/bit.ly\/3q592Sb<\/a>) around critical pedagogy, and Gloria Ladson-Billings “Just what is critical race theory and what’s it doing in a nice field like education?<\/a>” (https:\/\/bit.ly\/3MlkjVS<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The critical review of literature was informed by Young’s critical social theories the “Five faces of oppression. In Justice and the politics of difference<\/a>” (https:\/\/bit.ly\/3MPiWAb<\/a>): exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence – both in education and society in wider perspectives. These five faces of oppression include racism, sexism, elitism, classism, any oppression due to social identity such as race, ethnicity, language and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q2. Institutions tend to be the biggest obstacle, even now we see that many universities are pushing for staff and students to come back to campus when a large proportion would prefer working remotely or studying online which they find more conducive. Do you have observations of how institutions have pushed or still push for oppressive pedagogies?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Things have changed a lot because of Covid, but most institutions want to make a profit. Education is becoming more and more a business rather than for the public good and this is what anti-oppressive pedagogies are trying to address.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For anti-racist efforts to spread, we need to engage in meaningful conversations around these issues, they have be embedded in every course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is not what technology can do, but what we can do with technology.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q3. We often find people keep doing whatever they have been doing in the past because they do not know anything else or not even ready to know anything else. Has your research reinforced this or have you noticed some change in the sector?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The review has shown that there are some people who are doing things to change the system, they are accommodating. In some of the articles in the review they began with trying to do something anti-oppressive but they went down the hill, and these were based in the UK, they were not personalising what needed to be done<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our guest referred to the work of Dr Ruha Benjamin (https:\/\/www.ruhabenjamin.com\/<\/a>) who describes there are four ways that racism works in technology. One of them is Default Discrimination, it is the default settings it is how discussions mostly work because many educators do not know anything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One way to have an anti-oppressive society is to have difficult conversation. We need to have Professional Development for staff about social issues of students – dialogue for social awareness. The idea is to critique the status quo and also provide opportunities to know how to challenge the status quo. First, it is important to build trust so that it gets a bit easier to talk about racism, sexism, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Educators can use anti-oppressive pedagogies by:<\/p>\n\n\n\n