This presentation discusses public pedagogy as a comprehensive approach that addresses the MER Section theme at IAMCR2020: inclusion and respect for others in a divided world. I draw my approach of public pedagogy on the conceptual premise that public means dwelling among unknown others as well as among unfamiliar and uncertain, even inconceivable issues. My reading of public pedagogy emphasizes human agency that progresses from uniformity and exclusion of the unknown towards plurality and inclusion of the not-yet-known.
The presentation provides first the theoretical foundations for my argument of public pedagogy and introduces then an outline for pedagogical praxis in higher education. I have constructed my concept of public pedagogy by drawing on sociological and philosophical interpretations of the public realm (2013; 2017; 2019, forthcoming), critical pedagogy (e.g. Giroux 1988, 2001), and previous readings of public pedagogy (e.g. Sandlin 2011, Biesta 2012). Compared to earlier readings and critical pedagogy, I have founded my approach on more comprehensive analyses of the theoretical legacy of the public realm.
The outline for pedagogical praxis suggested in this presentation consists of three domains of agency that reach from interpersonal level interactions to transnational level political protest and deliberative processes. The domains are a) constantly re-evaluated, inclusive discursive practices, b) expanding relations to unknown others and issues, and c) the making of the political public sphere. I argue public pedagogical praxis should address all of them both as theoretical topics and students’ evolving practical capacities, because it is through these domains that humans face unknown others, process unfamiliarity and uncertainty, and transform society.
All three domains provide accesses to shared meaning-making and shared human experience, thus providing exits from narrower domestic domains. Public pedagogical praxis operates therefore on two levels: empowering students and facilitating them to be agents of inclusion, plurality and transformation.
I suggest the public pedagogical praxis would begin materializing in higher education through the following emphases in teaching and learning:
1) Students’ evolving capacity to identify and communicate meanings despite disagreement and uncertainty, without expectations of overcoming disagreement and uncertainty.
2) Students’ evolving capacity to face and relate to unknown others and unfamiliar, uncertain issues without expectations that the unknown would go away.
3) Students’ evolving capacity to analyze, make judgements in context, and act across diverse genres of inclusive agency in the political public sphere, ranging from grassroots activism to dialogic and deliberative processes in formal political bodies.
References:
Biesta, G. (2012). Becoming public: public pedagogy, citizenship and the public sphere. Social & Cultural Geography 13(7), 683–697.
Giroux, H. A. (1988). Schooling and the struggle for public life: Critical pedagogy in the modern age. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Giroux, H. (2001). Public spaces, private lives: Beyond the culture of cynicism. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Sandlin, J. A., O’Malley, M. P. & Burdick, J. (2011). Mapping the complexity of public pedagogy scholarship: 1894–2010. Review of Educational Research 81(3), 338–375.