Individual Presentation or Panel Title
Politicization as Collective Learning
Abstract
This paper argues that politicization should be understood as a learning process that is social and which shifts not only people’s conceptual understandings of social relations, but meaningfully shifts their epistemologies and identities through collective engagement. In the student-activist group Fossil Free UofT, some participants became radical. We participated in the fossil fuel divestment campaign at the University of Toronto for two years as part of a militant participatory action research project. Participants who were politicized shifted from mainstream environmentalist frames, practices, and identities toward anti-racist, decolonial, and feminist praxis. We analyze their transformation through a learning sciences approach, using longitudinal video data to track students' political development. We argue that politicization is not merely cognitive, but a holistic process that involves shifts in practices, ways of knowing, and identities. Through the use of ethnographic sketches, we trace the ways that these elements worked together to politicize student activists.
Presentation Description
In this paper we trace the politicization of youth environmentalists who were politicized, shifting from mainstream environmentalist frames, practices, and identities toward anti-racist, decolonial, and feminist praxis. We analyze their transformation through a learning sciences approach, using longitudinal video data to track students' political development. We argue that politicization is a collective learning process which shifts not only people’s conceptual understandings of social relations, but meaningfully shifts their epistemologies and identities through collective engagement.
Keywords
conscientization, politicization, situated learning, identity, epistemology, participation, cognition
Publication Type and Release Option
Event
Recommended Citation
Curnow, Joe; Davis, Amil; and Asher, Lila, "Politicization as Collective Learning" (2018). Curriculum Studies Summer Collaborative. 27.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cssc/2018/2018/27
Politicization as Collective Learning
This paper argues that politicization should be understood as a learning process that is social and which shifts not only people’s conceptual understandings of social relations, but meaningfully shifts their epistemologies and identities through collective engagement. In the student-activist group Fossil Free UofT, some participants became radical. We participated in the fossil fuel divestment campaign at the University of Toronto for two years as part of a militant participatory action research project. Participants who were politicized shifted from mainstream environmentalist frames, practices, and identities toward anti-racist, decolonial, and feminist praxis. We analyze their transformation through a learning sciences approach, using longitudinal video data to track students' political development. We argue that politicization is not merely cognitive, but a holistic process that involves shifts in practices, ways of knowing, and identities. Through the use of ethnographic sketches, we trace the ways that these elements worked together to politicize student activists.