TOWARDS A CRITICAL DIGITAL

STORYTELLING MODEL FOR

ENGAGING WITH DIFFERENCE

BASED ON THE PEDAGOGY OF

DISCOMFORT – A CASE OF PRE-

SERVICE EDUCATION STUDENTS

IN SOUTH AFRICA

Daniela Gachago

Cape Peninsula University of Technology

Background

Background of the study

Transformation in

Higher Education has

led to racially

integrated classrooms

Social and cultural

integration are lagging

behind (Jansen 2010,

Soudien 2012)

Social engagements

Pattman study 2010: Investigating 'race' and

social cohesion at the University of Kwa-Zulu

Natal

Students identified strongly with racial background

and actively constructed entities in opposition to each

other (960)

Schools not the melting pots one wants to see, but

where differences along race lines might even be

reinforced (964)

Subtle everyday forms of racism ‘encoded in the

norms and behaviour of institutional cultures are

notoriously difficult to change’ (Pattman 2010: 954).

Explosive emotions

Many educators shy away from difficult topics

such as race and privilege for fear of the

emotions that might come up, be it bitter

feelings, anger, resentment and real pain

(Burbules 2004)

But also growing interest in literature around

practices that unsettle established beliefs and

assumptions

Emotions

To engage in critical inquiry often means asking students to radically re-evaluate their world views. This process can incur feelings of anger, grief, disappointment, and resistance, but the process also offers students new windows on the world: to develop the capacity for critical inquiry regarding the production and construction of differences gives people a tool that will be useful over their lifetime. In short, this pedagogy of discomfort requires not only cognitive but emotional labor. (Boler and Zembylas 2003: 110)

Emotions in education

Megan Boler Michalinos Zembylas

A professor at the University of

Toronto, Megan Boler teaches

philosophy, cultural studies, feminist

theory, media studies, social equity

courses in the Teacher Education

program, and media studies at the

Knowledge Media Design Institute.

Dr. Michalinos Zembylas is Assistant

Professor of Education at the Open

University of Cyprus. He is

particularly interested in how

affective politics intersect with issues

of social justice pedagogies,

intercultural and peace education,

and citizenship education.

Politics of emotions

Emotions are seen as relational, happening in

a shared political space, ‘in which students

and teachers interact with implications in

larger political and cultural struggles’ (Albrecht-Crane & Slack, cited in Zembylas 2007, xiii).

‘The social control of emotions, and emotions

as a site of resistance to oppression, are

underexplored scholarly disciplines as well as

within pedagogical practices’ (Boler 1999, xii)

Pedagogy of discomfort

Stipulates that for both

educators and students to

develop a deeper

understanding for their own

and their shared past, it is

necessary to move outside

their comfort zone, to start to

unpack their understanding

of norms and differences

(Boler 1999, Boler and

Zembylas 2003).

Pedagogy of possibility

Result of pedagogy of discomfort: negative

emotional labour such as vulnerability, anger,

suffering.

Emotional labour can produce favourable

results, including self-discovery, hope, passion

an a sense of community.

Critical digital storytelling

Critical storytelling

Way to unearth students' historically situated

and culturally mediated lived experiences is

the telling of stories (Aveling 2006)

Critical storytelling (Solorzano & Yosso 2002)

aims at telling stories about uncomfortable

issues, stories of marginalised and often

silenced people.

Counter vs stock stories

No one escapes hegemony

A POD invites not only members of the

dominant culture but also members of the

marginalized cultures to re-examine the

hegemonic values inevitably internalized in the

process of being exposed to curriculum and

media that serve the interest of the ruling

class.

Sentimentality and critical

emotional reflexivity

Sentimentality in digital stories

originate directly from participants lived

experiences, and often deal with significant

episodes in somebody’s lives

tendency to be very emotional

danger of ‘sentimentality of digital stories’,

arguing that it promotes ‘individualistic, and

naively unselfconscious accounts of personal

stories’ (Hartley and McWilliam 2009: 14)

‘Somewhat paradoxically from a critical

perspective, it is the very qualities that mark

digital stories as uncool, conservative, and

ideologically suspect – ‘stock’ tropes,

nostalgia, even sentimentality – that give them

the power of social connectivity, while the

sense of authentic self-expression that they

convey lowers the barriers to empathy.‘

(Burgess 2006:10)

Danger of sentimentality

Zembylas: sentimental reaction by students

identifying with the privilege feeling guilt /

defensiveness in privileged party and anger in

the victim, leading to desensitization &

disengagement (2011: 20)

Critical emotional reflexivity

….a process of using emotions as catalysts, to

allow the questioning of beliefs and

assumptions, exposing privilege and comfort

zones, with the aim for learners to find new

ways of being with the ‘Other’, and ultimately

leading to transformed ‘relationships,

practices, and enactments that benefit

teaching and learning for peace, mutual

understanding, and reconciliation’

(Zembylas 2011: 2)

Aims and research questions

Aims of study /gaps

Theoretical aim: to contribute critically to an

emerging body of work which theorizes difference,

education and identity in South Africa (Carrim

2000; Soudien 2001; Walker 2005b; McKinney

2007).

Practical aim: to develop a practical model for

exploring difference based on a pedagogy of

discomfort (critical digital storytelling)

Methodological aim: contribute to narrative

emotional inquiry approach which is

underdeveloped

Main research question

Explore the potential of a critical digital

storytelling process to create a space in the

South African classroom to engage across

difference in a way that can lead to

transformation among students

Sub-research questions

1. What narratives do students construct in

critical digital storytelling? (product)

2. What are conditions need to be in place for

critical digital storytelling? (process)

Theoretical framework

Theoretical framework

Critical pedagogy / Critical race theory

Foucault’s post-structuralism (later work)

Zembylas’ development of a politics of

emotions, genealogy of emotions

What is Critical Pedagogy?

Critical pedagogy is a teaching approach which attempts to help students question and challenge domination, and the beliefs and practices that dominate them.

How do you teach critical thinking in a way that transforms consciousness (Boler 1999, Freire 1978)?

Critical consciousness requires ‘knowing thyself’ as part of the historical process’ (Fishman and McCarthy 2005)

Important concepts

Show how ‘schools perpetuate or reproduce the

social relationships and attitudes needed to

sustain the existing dominant economic and class

relations of the larger society’ (McLaren 2009: 77)

Hegemony is ‘ the maintenance of domination not

by the sheer exercise of force but primarily

through consensual social practices, social forms,

and social structures produced in specific sites

such as the church, the state, the school, the

mass media, the political system, and the family’

(McLaren 2009: 67).

Primacy of student experience

Assisting students to draw on their voices and

histories as a basis for engaging and

interrogating the multiple and often

contradictory experiences that provide them

with a sense of identity, worth and presence

(Giroux 2009: 453).

Resistance: difficulty to break out of

hegemonic discourses

Critical race theory

giving voice to normally silenced people and subjugated knowledges, to provide ‘a way to communicate the experiences and realities of the oppressed, a first step on the road to justice’ (Ladson-Billings & Tate 2006: 21).

stockstories and counter-stories: ‘challenge social and racial injustice by listening to and learning from experiences of racism and resistance, despair and hope at the margins of society’ (Yosso 2006: 171).

potential of healing through the communal hearing of counterstories (Yosso 2006; Delgado 1989).

Limitations

CP takes sides

Sides with the marginalised / oppressed party

Alienates students of privileged status, reaffirms established beliefs and assumptions

Essentialises difference (Ellsworth 1989)

Assumes a position of rationality, discards emotions

‘Relation of teacher / student becomes voyeuristic when the voice of the pedagogue himself goes unexamined and unreflected’ (p.312)

Post-structuralism

Michel Foucault

Helps critiquing our own thinking, meta-level

Important concepts

Importance of history to understand the present

Power/knowledge

Individual agency

Role of affective experiences

Identity as constructed and constantly changing

Power / knowledge

Intricate relationship between

power/knowledge

People and bodies are sites where power is

enacted and resisted

‘Opposition leads to resistance and resistance

yields agency’

Constantly negotiated / potential for disruption

Power as discourse

Emotions

Rejects Descartes ‘cogito ergo sum’

Importance of affective experiences to come

close to one’s real truth

Idea of limit experiences

Zembylas’ Politics of Emotions

Aim: to ‘problematize assumptions and expectations about emotion talk and the ways emotions are expressed in order to reveal the role power relations and ideology play in the formation of emotions as discursive practices’ (2005: 29).

Teachers need to develop a critical emotional knowledge about pedagogies and themselves (p.38), by exploring how emotional discourses are constructed and how those constitute a teacher’s subjectivity.

Genealogy of emotions

a ‘form of history which can account for the

constitution of knowledges, discourses,

domains of objects etc.’ (Foucault 1980: 117)

Individual reality

(intrapersonal)

Social interactions

(Interpersonal)

Sociopolitical context

(intragroup)

The history of how

teacher emotions are

constructed

How teacher emotions

are used in teaching

and what possibilities

they open for teachers

and students

How teacher emotions

are relational, historical

and social

Zembylas 2005: 97

Research design

Critical research (Carr and Kemmis 1986): knowledge generated through this mode of research is an ideological critique of power, privilege and oppression (Merriam 1998)

Qualitative research design: interested in understanding the meaning people have constructed, how they make sense of the world and their experiences, meaning is embedded in people’s experiences and mediated through investigator’s own perceptions

Characteristics of qual research

Inductive research: finding theory to match the

data

Sampling: usually nonrandom, purposeful and

small

Time intensive, researcher is in close contact

with participants

Researcher : primary instrument of data

collection and analysis

Findings are richly descriptive

Merriam 1998

Case study: 4th year ISP

professional course

Cycle Students Focus of digital story

2010 29 students Reflection on 7 roles of the

teacher

2011 55 students

(4 student

facilitators)

Reflection on 1 role of teacher,

focusing on 1 critical incident on

journey to becoming teachers

(River of Life)

2012 67 students

(7 student

facilitators)

Critically reflect on 1 critical

incident on journey to becoming

teachers (Critical pedagogy and

River of Life)

2013 ????? Use emotions as catalysts to

make meaning of difference

Site of study

2013 4th year ISP pre-service teacher education students on Mowbray campus

Snapshot, highly contextualised, but methodologically framework can be applied to other settings in South African HE context

Sampling: convenience (student facilitators)

Better relationship

Deeper understanding

Longer engagement

Easier to work in small group than in large group

Diverse groups

Easier to talk about trace in mono-racial focus

groups, but it is important to facilitate dialogue

in mixed race research (Pattman 2010: 967)

Pilot studies

Cycle 1: focus on logistics, process of

developing digital stories

Cycle 2: introduction of River of Life, emotions

and discomfort, nagging feeling, sentimentality

Cycle 3: introduction of critical pedagogy,

difficulties, alienation of students, strategic

empathy, easier to work in small groups

Guilt

It suddenly made me realise like - how hard some of the people work here and how strong some people actually are. You’d often say like - ah you know - look at this person they never come to class and things - or they don’t do their assignments but you don’t know that they’re not doing it because they were up working all night until five in the morning like trying to earn money - it’s very emotional… I was howling yesterday and then I - I felt bad when I got home I felt so guilty I thought but all I had to do was ask that person all I had to do was take an interest in them and I haven't for four years. (WF)

Anger

Sitting there with them, looking at the story for me the aim was not for them to feel pity for me, because that’s always been an issue for me. You don’t feel sympathy for me. I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. This is my story and I’m proud of it. I’m not ashamed of it. So for you to feel pity it’s not going to help. It’s not going to help me - I don’t know if you will understand. (BM)

Now in fourth year you know they expect us

to be all integrated and be a happy family

and it’s such a false. I feel like you know

lecturers are crying we all crying but its

false because we've been with these

people for four years and we've never

bothered to ask them you know and now

we crying about their stories. (WF)

Critical Digital Storytelling

Data collection methods cycle 4

2 phases

4 day workshop

for student

facilitators (Aug

2013)

Actual project

(Sept – Oct

2013)

Pre-project

workshop

Project

Recording (video

taping) of

discussions

Debriefing sessions Debriefing sessions

after workshops

Reflective journals /

free writing

Reflective journals /

free writing

Initial digital stories Final digital stories

Focus groups Focus groups

Individual interviews? Individual interviews?

Observation Observation

Field notes (blog) Field notes (blog)

Rich content with narrow

focus (Cronje 2010)

Data analysis

Variety of data collection: various methods of transcription and analysis

Critical discourse analysis (Fairclough 1992, Gee 2006) Describe, interpret, explain relationships between micro and

macro processes within texts and discourses

Tracing patterning of modes within and across texts, pattern of power

Multimodal discourse analysis (Kress & Van Leeuwen 2001) More and more multimodality in students’ lives, messages

constructed with different semiotic modes

Taking cultural, social and historical background into account

Holistically orientated analysis of meaning, understanding the sum of parts can derive meaning

Transformation?

Set of analytical tools that allows the traceing

of resemiotization of discourse across

conversations and contexts, which signals

learning and transformation (Chouliaraki and

Fairclough 1999)

Validity

Video recording of discussions (?)

Triangulation of data

Member checks

Ethical considerations

Ethical clearance obtained from the Faculty of Education and Social Sciences (2010-2015). Ethics clearance from UCT to be obtained.

Informed consent to students written reflections, to interview them and use their videos for research

Release form for digital stories to be screen/published

References

Boler, M., & Zembylas, M. (2003). Discomforting Truths: The Emotional Terrain of Understanding Difference. In P. Trifonas(Ed.), Pedagogies of difference: Rethinking education for social change (pp. 110-136). New York: RoutledgeFalmer.

Bozalek, V. (2011). Acknowledging privilege through encounters with difference: Participatory Learning and Action techniques for decolonising methodologies in Southern contexts. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 14(6), 469-484.

Hemson, C., Moletsane, R., & Muthukrishna, N. (2001). Transforming Racist Conditioning. Perspectives in Education, 19(2), 85-97.

Jansen, J. (2010). Over the rainbow - race and reconciliation on university campuses in South Africa. Discourse, 38(1).

Lambert, J. (2010). Digital storytelling cookbook. Elements. Berkeley, CA: Center for Digital Storytelling.

Pattman, R. (2010). Investigating “race” and social cohesion at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal. South African Journal of Higher Education, 24(6), 953-971.

Soudien, C. (2012). Realising the dream. Cape Town: HSRC Press. Retrieved from http://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/product.php?productid=2291&freedownload=1

Zembylas, M. (2012). Teaching in Higher Education Pedagogies of strategic empathy: navigating through the emotional complexities of anti-racism in higher education. Teaching in Higher Education, (April), 37-41.

Zembylas, M. (2011). The politics of trauma in education. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Zembylas, M. (2007). Five pedagogies, a thousand possibilities. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

Acknowledgement

CPUT Research into Innovations in Teaching

and Learning Fund (RIFTAL 2011, 2012)

CPUT University Research Fund 2012

National research foundation 2012-2015

Facilitators and students of 2011 ISP Digital

Storytelling project