Singing into Language: Sudanese Australian young women create public pedagogy

This article examines the ethnocinematic research project Cross-Marked: Sudanese Australian Young Women Talk Education, and its relationship to the evolving notion of public pedagogies. The project explores the potential of alternative pedagogies, which include popular culture, especially audiovisual forms, to engage teachers and learners with one another in collaborative pedagogical methods. The author's collaborative work with students from refugee backgrounds involves what Giroux calls a 'spectrum of social practices' utilising a variety of media platforms. This article draws from the lived experiences of one particular co-participant, Achol Baroch, and her 15 Sudanese Australian co-participants. Their experiences of secondary education are traced through this arts-based participatory project using the emerging practice of ethnocinema, a type of ethnographic documentary film which is generative, interculturally collaborative and aligned with the transformative goals of critical pedagogy