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CriticalPedagogyCTE

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Ryan Lundell
Ryan Lundell
Jonathan Lee Montoya at Saint Mary's College of California
Jonathan Lee Montoya
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Integrating Critical Pedagogy with Career Technical Education
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Merging Critical Pedagogy
with CTE
Lundell and Montoya
Who are we?
❏Ryan Lundell
❏English/Construction
Teacher
❏Doctoral Student
❏Piedmont Hills High
School
❏San José, CA
Who are we?
❏Jonathan Montoya
❏Ph.D. Candidate
Roadmap
1. The Present Educational Moment
a. Neoliberalism and the Market Logic
i. Educational Impacts
ii. CTE
iii. Built environment
2. Unpack Critical Pedagogy
3. Critical Pedagogy Possibilities
4. Merge Building and Construction with Critical Pedagogy: Work in Progress
5. Critical Pedagogy Reflection
The Present Educational Moment: Neoliberalism
● Markets are efficient and fair, and should be relied upon for the allocation of scarce
resources.
● Deregulate industries, cut social spending, privatize public goods (such as education,
prisons and militaries) (Brown, 2017)
● Increases finance capital over productive capital, and converts every human need or
desire into a profitable enterprise/ “The Market Logic” (Brown, 2017).
Some Impacts
United States ranks worst among industrialized nations in social mobility and other health and social metrics such as life
expectancy, obesity, imprisonment and mental illness (Pickett & Wilkinson, 2009),
Neoliberalism and Education
● Profit Motive
○ Competition for grades (“social capital”) (Bourdieu,1985) that transforms to actual capital
○ High Stakes Testing
○ School rankings
● Privatization
○ Charter School/ School-Choice Movement (Spence, 2015)
○ For profit Universities
Neoliberalism and Education
● Return-on-Investment
○ “Learn to earn” model (Reyes & Morrell, 2008)
○ Students as investors in universities (Brown, 2017)
● Racial Inequality
○ Economic gaps mirror educational gaps (Anyon, 2014)
Neoliberalism and Education
● Erosion of Democracy
○ Rampant inequality eventually leads to despotism (Brown, 2017)
● Curriculum that stalls the political imagination.
○ Depoliticized curriculums and neglect to critically question (Spence, 2015)
○ Can imagine the end of the world before we can imagine the end of capitalism
(Fisher, 2022)
Neoliberalism and CTE
● Underserved students have been tracked into vocational programs that deny space for critical
thinking (Darder, 2017)
○ impacts a worker’s ability to transform inequitable economic policies (2017);
○ Creates an academic-vocational divide (Rose, 2004)
● Investment in CTE means economic growth (Obama)
● CTE connects Education to economic growth (Jocson)
● Economic growth = human development (Market Logic)
Neoliberalism and CTE
Recent vocational/CTE research filled with assumptions:
○ Critical thinking creates efficient workers (Megayanti et al., 2020)
○ Research is rarely student-centered (Jocson, 2020)
○ Social/Environmental justice secondary to efficiency
Neoliberalism in the Built Environment
● Present building policy is growth and profit over human and ecological costs (Irmie, 2021).
○ Archaic building systems (Turkey)
○ Waste of resources, poor regulation (Flint Water Crisis/ Toxic Train Ohio)
○ Building for profit rather than use (AirBnBs sitting empty)
○ Building becomes a monetized rather than a political act (Simpson, 2020).
Neoliberalism Built Environment
Building and construction industry needs
education that is critical of the current neoliberal
paradigm as well as present construction
methods (Irmie, 2021).
(Montoya et al., 2020)
Critical Pedagogy
“Banking System:” transforms students
from subjects to objects that must be filled
with a knowledge that legitimizes present
power structures (Freire et al., 2020).
Critical Pedagogy
Problem-Posing Pedagogy:
● Founded in praxis: the transformation of reality through continual action and reflection
● Praxis = develop a critical consciousness (political imagination),
●Critical Consciousness = transform reality (Freire et al., 2020).
○ “dialogues cannot exist in the absence of a profound love for the world and for people…love is
at the same time the foundation of dialogue and dialogue itself” (Freire et al., 2020 p. 87).
○ Creates openness and understanding
○ New ways of imagining and transforming reality
Critical Pedagogy:
In their seminal work The Art of Critical Pedagogy, Duncan-Andrade and Morrell lay out key principles:
● choose a vehicle for delivery that is meaningful to the students (asset-based);
● create a counterculture of excellence;
● address the material concerns in communities and across the globe;
●make reflection an integral part that allows the project to build with intellectual momentum (2008).
My Research…
Context of Class:
● Building and Construction Class of 9-12 graders (25 students)
● Dual-enrollment with Evergreen Valley College (Lundell et al., 2022; Montoya
et al., 2021)
● Co-teach with construction/science/english.
Critical Pedagogy: Starts with Self-Exploration
● Connect Construction Process to aspects of Identity
● Use SketchUp to virtually design a home
○Construction Process and Identity Presentation
Critical Pedagogy: Dialogues
Dialogues and Reflections:
Social/Environmental Justice in Building and Construction (Throughout Course)
● Gentrification
● Flint, Michigan
● Exploited labor in construction
● Superfund sites
● Turkey Earthquake disaster
● Ohio train toxic spill
Critical Pedagogy: VDC Community Impact Project
● Student lead and working with industry mentors
● Students are designers/builders and seek out clients in the community to provide
positive impact
○ Community Impact
○ Design on Sketchup
○ Build
○ Defend Final Presentations at Santa Clara University
Past Projects:
Community sidewalk analysis (Montoya et al., 2018)
Tiny Home
Classroom CO2 (Montoya et al., 2020)
Conclusion/Possibilities
● Critical Pedagogy opens up new ways to think about our disciplines
● Purpose must first be human development over economic growth
● Move away from the market logic and ignite our political imaginations
Reflections
● What critical dialogues can you bring into your class?
● How can you create opportunities for self-reflection in your class?
● How can you involve the community and industry in your curriculum?
References
Anyon, J. (2014). Radical possibilities: Public policy, urban education, and a new social movement. Routledge.
Brown, W. (2017). Undoing the demos: Neoliberalism's stealth revolution. Zone Books.
Darder, A. (2017). Reinventing Paulo Freire a pedagogy of Love. Routledge.
Fisher, M. (2022). Capitalist realism: Is there no alternative? Zer0 Books
Freire, P., Ramos, M. B., Macedo, D. P., & Shor, I. (2020). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Bloomsbury Academic.
Jocson, K. M. (2018). “I want to do more and change things”: Reframing CTE toward possibilities in urban education. Urban
Education, 53(5), 640-667.
Jocson, K. M., & Martínez, I. D. (2020). Extending learning opportunities: Youth research in CTE and the limits of a theory of change.
Equity & Excellence in Education, 53(1-2), 165–176. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2020.1763552
Megayanti, T., Busono, T., & Maknun, J. (2020). Project-based learning efficacy in Vocational Education: Literature Review. IOP
Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering, 830(4), 042075. https://doi.org/10.1088/1757-899x/830/4/042075
Lundell, R., Montoya, J., Peterson, F., Kinslow, A. II., Fruchter, R., Fischer, M., Bustamante, A., & Nava, P. (2022). Looking Beyond Fiddlers
Green College: Social Justice in Workforce Engineering Education Pathways. International Association for Continuing Engineering Education, Buffalo, NY.
Montoya, J., Peterson, F., Kinslow II, A., Fruchter, R., Fischer, M., & Bustamante, A. S. (2021). Fiddlers Green College: Looking for Equitable
Workforce Pathways in Silicon Valley. Journal of Problem Based Learning in Higher Education, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.5278/ojs.jpblhe.v9i1.6440
Montoya, J., Lundell, R., Peterson, F., Tarantino, S., Ramsey, M., Katz, G., Baldini, R., Fruchter, R., & Fischer, M. (2018). Building Sustainable
Communities: A Project-based Learning Approach to Modify Student Perceptions of the Building Industry. ACEEE Summer Study on
Energy Efficiency in Buildings, Asilomar conference center, Pacific Grove, CA.https://doi.org/10.25740/tr806nn5051
Montoya, J., Peterson, F., & Bonilla, S. (2020). Opportunity Gap and Women in the Energy Infrastructure Workforce. In 8th
International Research Symposium on PBL (IRSPBL), Aalborg, Denmark. https://doi.org/10.25740/pm007md6862
Simpson, L. (2020) ‘Our why: marketing the value of construction’, Insynth, 21 February.
Spence, L. K. (2015). Knocking the hustle: Against the neoliberal turn in black politics. punctum Books.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any citations for this publication.
LOOKING BEYOND FIDDLERS GREEN COLLEGE: SOCIAL JUSTICE IN WORKFORCE ENGINEERING EDUCATION PATHWAYS
Conference Paper
Full-text available
  • Jul 2022
Too often, research into postsecondary workforce and engineering education focuses solely on curricula and ignores student matriculation to high-skill high-wage careers. The purpose of this study is to investigate this subject through dual ethnographies in Project-Based Learning (PBL) Career and Technical Education (CTE) workforce pathways in Silicon Valley. This study looks to better explain functioning pathways. The authors take inspiration from three publications: past research found that seven PBL essentials form good learning outcomes [1]; a measurable outcome of PBL is higher attendance [2]; to which Applied STEM CTE (AS-CTE) [3] framed attendance as a predictor metric of the efficacy of a workforce pathway. We ask which metrics help explain successful workforce CTE pathways. Our ethnography uncovers two distinct postsecondary PBL pathways and explores a new predictive metric of social mobility, which helps to reveal the pathways' struggle to support marginalized students' mobility into the high-skill high-wage building workforce. Despite these challenges, a Labor-Union-administered apprenticeship pathway showed promise in aiding social mobility. The authors uncovered early evidence that social mobility may be added as a metric to a predictive ontology framework of pathway success.
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Fiddlers Green College: Looking for Equitable Workforce Pathways in Silicon Valley
Article
Full-text available
  • Dec 2021
Often, research on the efficacy of postsecondary workforce programs does not convey their impact on true social mobility. The purpose of this study is to investigate project-based Career and Technical Education (CTE) workforce pathways in Silicon Valley. 1 This study takes a step towards better understanding what constitutes the metrics that explain functioning pathways. In contributing to Project-Based Learning (PBL) theory, Amaral et al. (2015) found that seven PBL essentials form good learning outcomes; Creghan and Adair-Creghan (2015) then showed a measurable outcome of PBL is higher attendance, to which Plasman and Gottfried (2020), using a case of Applied STEM CTE (AS-CTE), framed attendance as a predictor of the efficacy of a workforce pathway. Recommendation: Through ethnography, the investigators observed that when social mobility was added as a metric of high quality PBL with AS-CTE in a predictive ontology framework of education success, an improved level of attendance was observed. The authors conclude that using the seven essentials and social mobility as a metric of PBL helps explain the observation of PBL's improved efficacy. Hence, social mobility should be a metric of PBL AS-CTE program outcomes.
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Opportunity Gap and Women in the Energy Infrastructure Workforce
Conference Paper
Full-text available
  • Aug 2020
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) predicts above-average employment growth for jobs in the construction industry. And despite the majority of entry-level jobs in construction requiring a high school diploma or less, median annual wages in the industry are over 8,000 dollars higher than other industries (Torpey 2018). Despite this growth and relatively high wages, women are severely underrepresented; just 3.5 percent of workers in the construction occupations are women while women make up 47 percent of the labor force. Career and Technical Education (CTE) in high school can provide an avenue for increasing the participation of young women. Through a Researcher Practitioner Partnership (RPP), a team of teachers, trades educators, and administrators from high schools, community colleges, and apprenticeship centers sought to increase access through a virtual design and construction STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) career pathway program. The team explored if a Project-based Learning (PBL) approach in Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) is a feasible method for woman-focused CTE. We found evidence that targeted recruiting through a feminist positive pathway to create a critical mass of female participants in conjunction with PBL can offer an opportunity for women to enter a traditionally male-dominated field. Furthermore, our study calls for continued theory development into and provides evidence that higher concentrations of women has the potential to increase the industry’s focus on safety, environmental protection, and labor standards. We argue that the lack of female representation is due to an opportunity gap for young women to learn about and join high-skill high-wage occupations.
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Project-based learning efficacy in vocational education: Literature review
Article
Full-text available
  • May 2020
A shift in-demand skill in the workforce at the cognitive level and the need to adapt is a challenge for vocational graduates. Therefore a strategy is needed to enhance the 21st-century skills in vocational education. One of the strategies is implementing an active learning model such as Project-Based Learning. This article aim is to gather, summarize and integrate the quality of empirical evidence supporting links between Project-based Learning (PBL) and 21st-century competency framework. This study conducted with a systematic literature review. The data was collected from textbooks, journal articles, and internet searches. The result shows there are a lot of evidence of project Based Learning positive impact in fostering students skill in accordance to 21st-century competency framework including critical thinking, problem-solving, communication ability, collaboration ability, and creativity. The result also shows that several factors that could limit the effectiveness of PBL implementation including the teacher’s role, students’ roles, and other factors including equipment and the environment.
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Building sustainable communities: A project-based learning approach to modify student perceptions of the building industry
Conference Paper
Full-text available
  • Aug 2018
The building industry has experienced a paradigm shift with increased use of data for collaboratively designing, building, and operating sustainable, socially conscious, energy-efficient projects; this shift has resulted in a theory called virtual design and construction (VDC). Secondary education provides students few opportunities to explore these methods. However, project-based learning (PBL) has shown success in VDC education at a graduate level; though scarce in low-income schools due to a discrepancy called the 'opportunity gap.' The opportunity gap creates a perception that the building industry does not lead to advanced STEM degrees-which students otherwise discover through courses like VDC. That perception forms a resistance to building industry entrance pathways such as building trade apprentice programs. That resistance then hinders achieving the social mandate to include underrepresented demographics such as women in high paying STEM fields such as apprenticed building trades. As a result, it is a male-dominated pathway. Leveraging California Proposition 39 funding, the authors developed a PBL education platform to integrate VDC students from the secondary, apprentice, undergraduate, and graduate levels. The purpose of this research was to discover to what degree underrepresented youth perceive the building industry as a career if given an opportunity to learn VDC through PBL. The VDC curriculum was piloted as a course that encompassed topics of sustainability, environmental justice, and energy efficiency. A mix of community-based participatory research (CBPR), ethnography, and surveys were utilized to gather content. Data were gathered from three secondary institutions, including an all-girls school and an underrepresented community with one-tenth the admission rate to top-tier universities of Palo Alto high school (selected as a generic benchmark for comparison). Through CBPR the authors show that VDC-PBL 1) narrows the opportunity gap 2) teaches virtual design and construction, and 3) explores careers in sustainability and topics of environmental justice.
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Extending Learning Opportunities: Youth Research in CTE and the Limits of a Theory of Change
Article
  • Jun 2020
In career and technical education (CTE), the vocational-academic divide continues to influence practices and policies that shape students’ experiences. Drawing on a qualitative study and retrospective analysis, we argue that hands-on learning with critical praxis is important for engaging students in CTE. A theory of change, focused on the human potential of students in the process of becoming, offers possibilities for extending learning opportunities. For educators, enacting a theory of change in any learning environment is difficult and, at times, still not enough. In this article, the authors reflect on their experiences working with students interested in multimedia production who engaged in youth participatory action research at one particular CTE high school.
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Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution
Book
  • Mar 2015
Undoing democracy : neoliberalism's remaking of state and subject -- Foucault's birth of biopolitics lectures : the distinctiveness of neoliberal rationality -- Revising Foucault : homo politicus and homo oeconomicus -- Disseminating neoliberal rationality I : governance, benchmarks and best practices -- Disseminating neoliberal rationality II : law and legal reason -- Disseminating neoliberal rationality III : higher education and the abandonment of citizenship -- Losing bare democracy and the inversion of freedom into sacrifice.
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Reinventing Paulo Freire: A pedagogy of love, second edition
Book
  • Jun 2017
One of the most influential critical educators of the twentieth century, Paulo Freire challenged those educational inequalities and conditions of injustice faced by oppressed populations. In this new edition of Reinventing Paulo Freire, Antonia Darder re-examines his legacy through reflections on Freirean pedagogy and the narratives of teachers who reinvent his work. The fully revised first part provides important historical, political, and economic connections between major societal concerns and educational questions raised by Freire and their link to the contemporary moment, including questions tied to neoliberalism, coloniality, and educational inequalities. At the heart of the book is a critical understanding of how Freire’s pedagogy of love can inform, in theory and practice, a humanizing approach to teaching and learning. Powerful teacher narratives offer examples of a living praxis, committed to democratic classroom life and the emancipation of subaltern communities. The narratives clearly illustrate how Freire’s ideas can be put concretely into practice in schools and communities. These reflections on Freirean praxis are sure to spark conversation and inspiration in teacher education courses. Through a close theoretical engagement of Freire’s ideas and key insights garnered from lived experiences, the book speaks to the ways Freire can still inspire contemporary educators to adopt the spirit of liberatory pedagogy, By so doing, Reinventing Paulo Freire is certain to advance his theories in new ways, both to those familiar with his work and to those studying Freire for the first time.
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"I Want to Do More and Change Things": Reframing CTE Toward Possibilities in Urban Education
Article
  • Dec 2015
  • URBAN EDUC
This article addresses the discourse on career and technical education (CTE) from a multiperspectival approach to challenge the persisting academic-vocational divide. The author illustrates the paradoxical rhetoric in CTE, then shares a personal experience, and draws on ethnographic research to reveal a different understanding of enabling human capacity to support racially and culturally minoritized youth. In the end, the author suggests that a push beyond the language of investment and skills embedded in educational reform becomes all the more important in preparing youth for the future. Implications for practice, research, and policy toward possibilities in urban education are also discussed.
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Radical Possibilities: Public Policy, Urban Education, and A New Social Movement
Article
  • Oct 2012
Jean Anyon's groundbreaking new book reveals the influence of federal and metropolitan policies and practices on the poverty that plagues schools and communities in American cities and segregated, low-income suburbs. Public policies…such as those regulating the minimum wage, job availability, tax rates, federal transit, and affordable housing…all create conditions in urban areas that no education policy as currently conceived can transcend. In this first book since her best-selling Ghetto Schooling, Jean Anyon argues that we must replace these federal and metro-area policies with more equitable ones so that urban school reform can have positive life consequences for students.
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