Reflexivity and Critical Pedagogy

Education and other researchers from the UK offer nine chapters on the role of reflexivity in education, as a means to incorporate a critical assessment of the significance of environment, power, and context, as well as subjectivity, in the delineation and construction of knowledge. They argue that global equality is not possible without a reflexive critique of education and the assumptions that define knowledge. They examine the political, cultural, and psychosocial dynamics that define knowledge and constitute the context in which learning takes place, from theoretical, global, political, and personal perspectives. They discuss discourse and reflexivity, the potential of autoethnography in exploring the emotional dimensions of teaching and learning, the importance of systemic theory in critiquing the environmental contexts that influence educational projects, the application of principles of transformative learning in local knowledge, the role of reflexivity in collaborative theatre-making, reflexivity in adult and community education for active citizenship, reflexive practice and adult learning, and how narrative is related to reflection on lived experience, reflexive dialogue, meaning making and the collaborative development of new insight and knowledge. Annotation ©2018 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)

Anne Ryan, PhD (1992), Flinders University, South Australia, is Professor of Adult and Community Education, Maynooth University, Ireland. Her publications relating to critical pedagogy include 'Conscientization: The Art of Learning' in Pedagogy, Oppression and Transformation in a ‘Post-Critical’ Climate (Continuum, 2011).

Tony Walsh, DEd (2013), University of Bristol (UK), is Director of the Centre for the Study of Irish Protestantism and Co-director of the Centre for Transformative Narrative Research, Maynooth University. His publications include Writing Your Thesis: A Guide for Postgraduate Students (MACE, 2015).