Date of Award

Spring 2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Education Policy, Planning, and Administration

Committee Chairperson

David Backer, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Lesley Siegel, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Maria Cabrera, Ph.D.

Abstract

This is a qualitative self-study conducted in the tradition of practitioner inquiry that examines the pedagogics of an English language development (ELD) classroom. Different from pedagogy, pedagogics is the face-to-face encounter of Sameness and Otherness in systems or institutions characterized by power imbalances, as theorized by Argentinian liberatory philosopher, Enrique Dussel. More specifically, liberatory pedagogics, as conceptualized by Dussel in the arena of education, is characterized by an analectic between teacher and student in which, from a position outside of the dominant paradigm, the dynamic of Sameness and Otherness is observed, evaluated, and reimagined so as not to reproduce sameness in the colonial tradition. To understand the liberatory pedagogics of an ELD classroom, the researcher practitioner collected two types of data: fieldnotes that included observations and reflections from her perspective as practitioner, and student work and transcripts of small group classroom discussions from the perspective of her student participants (N=4). The identification of themes led to three findings. One, in this ELD classroom, pedagogics are characterized by four forms: perception, knowing, disconnection and affirmation. Second, in this classroom, face-to-face interactions of Sameness and Otherness are not limited to teacher-student, but rather include student-student in the presence of the teacher and teacher-student in the presence of students. Finally, pedagogics could be identified as falling on a continuum between liberatory and oppressive, depending on the specific scenario, not the form of pedagogic. Implications for practice are explored.

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