Critical pedagogy abroad : a case study of the Center for Global Education in Mexico

by Burns, Heather L.

This study examines the critical pedagogy utilized by the Center for Global

Education's study abroad program in Cuernavaca, Mexico. The Center for

Global Education (Centro de Educación Mundial en America Latina-

CEMAL) facilitates two semester long study abroad programs per year as

well as a variety of short term programs, all of which focus on teaching

learners about issues of social justice. This thesis is based on an

ethnographic case study of CEMAL's fall semester program,

Women/Gender and Development: Latin American Perspectives, which

focuses on social justice issues specifically pertaining to women. This study

looks particularly at the communication between the members of this study

abroad program in order to discover the instructional communication and

instructional methods used to teach about social justice. Ethnography of

communication serves as a theoretical and methodological foundation for

this study. The first article examines the importance of community in

teaching social justice issues at CEMAL Participants each developed their

own meaning of social justice through their unique experiences within the

program's living and learning environment and through their contact with the

local community. The meaning of social justice emerged through

participants' communicative experience within these communities, a process

that was transformative and empowering for participants. The second article

examines the speech events and instructional strategies used to implement

critical pedagogy within this program. Four different classroom speech

events as well as out of class speech events served as spaces in which to teach

students about gender justice. Within these speech events, instructors used

critical analysis, instructional weaving, and a student-centered approach to

craft an educational experience that was interdisciplinary and transformative

for participants. This case study provides insight as to how pedagogy is used

within one study abroad program and offers communication research that

focuses on social justice. In addition, this study provides evidence of specific

instructional strategies that are used to implement critical pedagogy and their

effects on learners.