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

Graduation date: 2001This study examines the critical pedagogy utilized by the Center for Global\ud Education's study abroad program in Cuernavaca, Mexico. The Center for\ud Global Education (Centro de Educación Mundial en America Latina-\ud CEMAL) facilitates two semester long study abroad programs per year as\ud well as a variety of short term programs, all of which focus on teaching\ud learners about issues of social justice. This thesis is based on an\ud ethnographic case study of CEMAL's fall semester program,\ud Women/Gender and Development: Latin American Perspectives, which\ud focuses on social justice issues specifically pertaining to women. This study\ud looks particularly at the communication between the members of this study\ud abroad program in order to discover the instructional communication and\ud instructional methods used to teach about social justice. Ethnography of\ud communication serves as a theoretical and methodological foundation for\ud this study. The first article examines the importance of community in\ud teaching social justice issues at CEMAL Participants each developed their\ud own meaning of social justice through their unique experiences within the\ud program's living and learning environment and through their contact with the\ud local community. The meaning of social justice emerged through\ud participants' communicative experience within these communities, a process\ud that was transformative and empowering for participants. The second article\ud examines the speech events and instructional strategies used to implement\ud critical pedagogy within this program. Four different classroom speech\ud events as well as out of class speech events served as spaces in which to teach\ud students about gender justice. Within these speech events, instructors used\ud critical analysis, instructional weaving, and a student-centered approach to\ud craft an educational experience that was interdisciplinary and transformative\ud for participants. This case study provides insight as to how pedagogy is used\ud within one study abroad program and offers communication research that\ud focuses on social justice. In addition, this study provides evidence of specific\ud instructional strategies that are used to implement critical pedagogy and their\ud effects on learners