The Critical Dialogue Cornerstone: Suggested Practices to Guide Implementation, Facilitation and Evaluation

Accessing higher tertiary education for rural students in Zimbabwe is a complex journey shaped by various socio-economic, cultural, and geographic factors unique to their circumstances. This study examines the experiences of rural students in accessing, participating in, and attaining higher tertiary education through the lens of Freire's theory of critical consciousness. It employs a critical emancipatory research paradigm, utilising participatory action research methodologies. Twenty participants were purposively selected and actively involved as co-researchers throughout the research process to identify empowering practices that can transform their educational realities. Data was collected using focus group discussions and Photovoice, allowing participants to share narratives and visually represent the barriers in their educational journeys. Critical discourse analysis revealed various factors that shape educational trajectories, such as geographic isolation, financial constraints, a lack of collegiate guidance, and the internalisation of negative perceptions about rural identities. Findings also highlighted protective factors, including strong family and community support systems, self-determined mindsets, and engagement with college-bridging programmes. Through critical dialogues, participants explored ways to challenge internalised stigmas and develop critical literacies to navigate systemic barriers. The PAR process enhanced participants' critical consciousness and enabled them to collectively generate rural student-led solutions for equitable educational access. The importance of adopting strengths-based and culturally sustaining approaches that amplify the voices of rural students in transforming policies and practices was highlighted. Importantly, this study demonstrated the emancipatory potential of PAR in fostering resilience and self-advocacy among rural students, thereby promoting higher tertiary education as a means for social and economic mobility.

An educational praxis that is concerned with citizen formation ought to aim at the development of critical consciousness and critical thinking, but little research has addressed the dynamics of critical consciousness in mathematical modeling activities. This study aims to characterise and understand the manifestation of critical thinking and critical mathematical consciousness in the modeling process and approach the relationship between both. That said, we conducted qualitative research with engineering students who produced mathematical models involving differential equations. We found that critical mathematical consciousness and critical thinking show variations, as there is a greater occurrence of critical thinking to the detriment of critical consciousness. We conclude this study by presenting some implications for critical mathematical consciousness.

While a growing body of research in teacher education details about developing PTs critical consciousness within static moments of a teacher preparation program (TPP), less is known about the development across multiple semesters of a TPP. This qualitative case study explores one preservice teacher’s ability to apply her critical consciousness while enacting culturally sustaining literacy practices in the elementary classroom. Drawing on frameworks of critical consciousness and approximations in teacher education, I analyze data across three semesters of coursework and field experiences including coursework reflections, lesson plans, and observation notes. Findings reveal that critical self-reflection is fundamental for PTs to examine and challenge their beliefs and biases. Critiquing lived reality through envisioning future practice enabled the PT to translate her reflective insights into actionable teaching practices. Additionally, the PT’s approximations of facilitating critical dialogue during read alouds demonstrated her ability to apply her critical consciousness within her literacy instruction. The study also underscores the importance of critical coaching and mentorship, highlighting how these elements provide the PT with essential guidance and feedback that helped her navigate the complexities of culturally sustaining teaching. Ultimately, this study supports the field’s understanding of PTs’ critical consciousness development as an iterative and complex process.

This article provides a personal reflection on the development of the author's critical consciousness and is meant to trigger debate on the relevance critical consciousness has for adult educators. Freire's stages of consciousness are used to provide a framework for understanding its development. Links between critical consciousness and consciousness raising are examined, and the issue of resistance is explored; these connections are used to discuss praxis involving both thought and action. Examples of the author's actions are used to illustrate how the development of critical consciousness has changed her personal, academic, and professional life. These demonstrate that critical consciousness does not evolve on its own, but rather requires supports that are external to oneself. Résumé Cet article constitue une réflexion personnelle sur le développement de la conscience critique de son auteure et vise à amorcer le débat sur la pertinence de cette conscience pour les éducateurs d'adultes. Les étapes de la conscientisation de Freire fournissent un cadre pour comprendre ce développement. L'on y examine les liens entre la conscience critique et la conscientisation ainsi que la question de la résistance. Ces liens sont utilisés pour analyser la praxis qui implique la pensée et l'action. Des exemples parmi les actions de l'auteur sont utilisés afin d'illustrer comment le développement de la conscience critique a changé sa vie personnelle, académique et professionnelle. Cet exercice montre que la conscience critique n'évolue pas toute seule mats requiert un soutien de soi-même comme de l'extérieur.

The seaside town of Portrush, on the north coast of Ireland, has a strong reputation for skateboarding culture. The Skate Stopped? co-creative research project is a critical intervention in the campaign to ‘Get Portrush a Skatepark!’, collaborating with the community to raise the profile of skateboarding’s cultural tradition in the area, and engaging the skaters in critical dialogue in this gentrifying context. This article focuses on the project’s video outputs (as published between April and October 2023), picking out two key critical themes: Do-It-Yourself (DIY) culture and space-claiming; and resortification (gentrification in a touristic context). We argue that any contemporary campaign that engages in DIY space-claiming constitutes (at least partially) a critique of neoliberalism—the limitations of skateboarding in Portrush in this regard and the vulnerability to co-optation within a resortifying dynamic are discussed, while exemplifying the insights that can be garnered through co-creative videographic research methodologies.

Brazilian philosopher-educator Paulo Freire defined critical consciousness as the ability to engage in reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it. A growing body of research has found that critical consciousness is predictive of a number of important academic and civic outcomes in adolescents from oppressed groups. The present mixed methods study considered the critical consciousness development of 335 adolescents (57% female, 92% African American or Latinx) attending urban secondary schools that sought to foster their students' critical consciousness, but featured five different pedagogical approaches. We hypothesized that considering these adolescents' critical consciousness development through a character lens would highlight ways in which different schooling models contribute differentially to their students' development of the intellectual, performance, and civic dimensions of critical consciousness. Longitudinal analyses revealed significant differences in the critical consciousness development of adolescents attending different schooling models along these dimensions. Interviews with adolescents and field work conducted at their schools offered insight into the programming and practices that may have contributed to these differences in students' critical consciousness development.

There is debate around offering ethnic studies to high school students. Ethnic studies connects learning to students' lives and analyzes the workings of racism to construct avenues toward equity. As the debate unfolds, it is critical to examine ethnic studies' implications for youth development and the mechanisms that link it to student outcomes. One of ethnic studies' long-stated goals is fostering students' critical consciousness. Critical consciousness refers to critical reasoning around inequality (critical reflection), motivation to challenge inequality (critical motivation), and action taken to disrupt inequality (critical action). Little research has examined youth critical consciousness development within ethnic studies-a consciousness-raising system. Consequently, this longitudinal mixed-methods study examines students' critical consciousness development in ethnic studies and sheds light on the contextual characteristics (i.e., critical school socialization) that foster critical consciousness. Analyses of 459 ninth-grade students' (52% girls, 4% nonbinary; 1% Asian, 1% Black, 4% multiracial, 64% Latinx, 7% Native American, 15% described their own race, 7% skipped the question; Mage = 13.92) survey data, and focus group data with 19 students, revealed that ethnic studies-enrolled students grew more in their critical reflection than nonenrolled students. However, the quantitative data demonstrated decreasing critical motivation among all students, whereas the qualitative data suggested emergent critical motivation among ethnic studies-enrolled students. Furthermore, critical school socialization and teacher pedagogy were key to ethnic studies consciousness-raising. Altogether, this study highlights that ethnic studies fosters youth critical consciousness-a worthwhile outcome that should be considered in policy debates about ethnic studies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Economic inequality is a growing concern in the United States and globally. The current study uses qualitative techniques to (a) explore the attributions low-income racial/ethnic minority and immigrant women make for poverty and wealth in the U.S., and (b) clarify important links between attributions, critical consciousness development, and system justification theory. In-depth interview transcripts from 19 low-income immigrant Dominican and Mexican and native African American mothers in a large Northeastern city were analyzed using open coding techniques. Interview topics included perceptions of current economic inequality and mobility and experiences of daily economic hardships. Almost all respondents attributed economic inequality to individual factors (character flaws, lack of hard work). Structural explanations for poverty and wealth were expressed by fewer than half the sample and almost always paired with individual explanations. Moreover, individual attributions included system-justifying beliefs such as the belief in meritocracy and equality of opportunity and structural attributions represented varying levels of critical consciousness. Our analysis sheds new light on how and why individuals simultaneously hold individual and structural attributions and highlights key links between system justification and critical consciousness. It shows that critical consciousness and system justification do not represent opposite stances along a single underlying continuum, but are distinct belief systems and motivations. It also suggests that the motive to justify the system is a key psychological process impeding the development of critical consciousness. Implications for scholarship and intervention are discussed.

In this paper I describe and analyse how critical pedagogy, an approach to teaching and learning that encourages students to reflect on their socio-political contexts, may stimulate critical consciousness and dialogue at a youth radio show. The participants, who attended four diverse Cape Town high schools and predominantly lived in poor townships, named the show Youth Amplified. Youth Amplified dialogues were catalysed by a range of materials, including documentary films, newspapers and academic articles, which participants engaged with prior to the show. Participants then generated questions, which contributed to the dialogues that took place live on air. Two central themes emerged from the radio shows. First, the values and discourses of elite schools were transported to Youth Amplified and presented as incontestable truths that often denigrated marginalised learners. Second, participants used ‘race’ as a marker of social difference to make sense of peers and South African society. I argue that critical pedagogy interventions also need to work with educators to reflect on inequalities and socio-political contexts, if such interventions are to be successful. The show illuminated that young South Africans want to speak about racialised and class-based forms of historical oppression, but that these kinds of discussions require skilled facilitation.

Scholarship identifies critical consciousness as a key developmental asset in promoting the well-being of adolescents experiencing multiple socio-structural axes of oppression. Girls of color at acute risk for legal system involvement or re-involvement are absent from this literature. They are a critical population in which to examine this construct given their experiences of oppression and the myriad benefits of critical consciousness. The current study addresses this gap by examining traumatic incidents and experiences of racism and sexism as correlates of critical reflection and action among a sample of girls (N=220; Mean age=14.5years; SD=1.3years). Using path analysis and multigroup modeling, we examine direct associations between these three manifestations of structural oppression and critical consciousness and explore the interplay of traumatic incidents, and racism and sexism in girls' critical consciousness development. Findings suggest that experiences of sexism and racism, uniquely and positively predict critical action, but not critical reflection. Surprisingly, girls' experiences of traumatic incidents do not predict reflection or action. Finally, multigroup analyses show no evidence that these associations vary by the interplay of traumatic incidents, racism, and sexism. Implications for community psychology values and juvenile legal system practice and policy are discussed.

Legal education should develop in every law student an appreciation of practitioners’ ethical obligations and an understanding of the law’s social and political context. Realising these objectives – creating ‘critical awareness’ – depends on communicating two key propositions: that the law is an instrument of power in a highly legalised society; and that the law is normative and dynamic. Whether these propositions are elucidated or obscured is critically dependent on how legal doctrine is presented. This article will use extracts from course materials to show how the language used can limit students’ development of critical awareness. This article proposes an alternative approach to the presentation of legal doctrine that will promote students’ critical awareness. This approach makes explicit the relationship of the law and lawyers to power, and the social and political context in which law operates.

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Critical consciousness is the ability to critically analyse societal inequities and to develop the motivation and agency to promote social change. While there has been a proliferation of empirical work on critical consciousness over the last two decades, this is the first volume to consider how we can support youth's critical consciousness development – their ability to recognize and fight injustice. Leading scholars address some of the field's most urgent questions: How does critical consciousness develop? What are the key developmental settings (such as homes, schools, community programs) and societal experiences (racism, policy brutality, immigration, political turmoil) that inform critical consciousness development among youth? Providing novel insights into key school-based, out-of-school-based, and societal contexts that propel youth to greater critical reflection and action, this book will benefit scholars and students in developmental, educational, and community psychology, as well as practitioners working in schools, community-based organizations, and other youth settings.

To ensure equitable access to education for emergent multilingual learners, teachers should hold certain beliefs (Lucas et al., 2015) about language, including sociolinguistic consciousness, a value for linguistic diversity, and knowledge of the sociopolitical positioning of language (Lucas, 2011). This study examines possible effects of critical language awareness (CLA) (Fairclough, 1992) coursework on the development of critical consciousness related to language, identity, ideologies and culturally sustaining pedagogies multilingual preservice teachers of color. The research question is: What are some effects of the CMLA coursework on multilingual preservice teachers’ perceptions about the following measures: language ideologies, supporting students’ multiple languages outside the classroom, advocating for students’ multiple languages in the classroom, and critical perspectives? ANOVA analyses on pre- and post-survey data from 48 preservice teachers suggest that CLA coursework had a significant impact on three of the four critical consciousness measures, at varying levels of significance. This study shows that critical content delivered through well-designed pedagogical treatments can help improve preservice teachers’ understanding of the language use in their future classrooms, empower them through reflection on their language, identities, and ideologies, and guide them toward more asset-based approaches to teaching and learning.

This article reports the findings of a collaborative autobiographical narrative inquiry into the critical consciousness development in the lives of three white female graduates who worked as undergraduate research assistants (RAs), while they were preservice teachers. Their RA work included data collection and equity analysis of the web content concerning dual language bilingual education (DLBE) of several school districts in the United States. This study focuses on these preservice teachers’ critical consciousness growth before, during, and after their RA work. Findings show calls to critical consciousness development around three particular aptitudes: Empathetic perspective taking via racialized friends, calls to specific naming of patterns of power in university coursework, and calls to first-hand evidence during their RAship. A fourth finding was advocacy pedagogy. We make a call to pay attention to the different areas of critical consciousness and share implications for teachers, teacher education, DLBE, and the staffing of research teams.