Sandlin, J.A., O’Malley, M.P., & Burdick, J. (2011). Mapping the complexity of pedagogy scholarship: 1894-2010. Review of Educational Research, 81(3), 338-375. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23014296
Sandlin, O’Malley, and Burdick reviewed 420 scholarly sources that identify the key term “public pedagogy” (with few exceptions) and organize this literature into the following categories:
- citizenship within and beyond schools
- popular culture and everyday life
- informal institutions and public spaces
- dominant cultural discourses
- public intellectualism and social activism
For my purposes, I won’t define each category here, but instead triangulate moments from this article that relate to the work I’m revising about writing centers as a site for public pedagogy. A thread through all of these categories is the way in which transgression and resistance is defined.
Citizenship Within and Beyond Schools
Prior to reading Sandlin, O’Malley, & Burdick, I hadn’t conceived of my use of the term public pedagogy as cultivating citizenship. However, the authors draw on the early work of French scholar D’Arvert (1893) to identify that school serves an educational role where the family’s and church’s roles end. “The use of the of term public refers not to a physical site of educational phenomena but rather to an idealized outcome of educational activity; the production of a public aligned in terms of values and collective identity” (Sandlin, O’Malley, & Burdick, 2011, p. 342). School then develops a collective identity beyond home and religious institution that contributes to a public–or in Dewey’s (1913) terms, democratic–ethos. This makes me think about my early arguments in my dissertation (2015) for institutional mission broadly, and Torah U’Madda specifically, as operationalizing rhetorical educational. I may be making too sloppy of a connection here though because a religious-driven institution unites school and “church” in ways that, perhaps, D’Avert did not intend. I’m working to confirm (for myself) that through invoking the public part of public pedagogy, the field is identifying that educators working in or creating liminal spaces between school and public are necessarily cultivating sites of resistance of dominant discursive practices, or in this case notions of citizenry.
Popular Culture and Everyday Life
Scholars like Giroux and Gee have considered “the ways in which digital spaces provide possibilities for resistance and for democratization of knowledge” (Sandlin, O’Malley, & Burdick, 2011, p. 347). As obvious as it may seem, I need to highlight this for myself: that the resistance of dominant discourse–or in Gramsci’s (1971) terms, the hegemony–has a democratizing effect through its invitation and folding in of voices that have been historically left out of whatever the situational context. I have a lot more work to do catching up with Giroux’s vast body of work (later posts should address this), and I also want to eventually take a look at Wright’s (2007) study “‘The Avengers,’ Public Pedagogy, and the Development of British Women” that “investigates processes of public pedagogy from the perspective of the learner” (Sandlin, O’Malley, & Burdick, 2011, p. 347).
Public Pedagogy, Public Intellectualism, and Performative Social Activism
This area of public pedagogy focuses on the role public figures–like politicians or business leaders–play as de facto teachers. This assumes that public figures have a place in the ongoing development of particular public values, policies, and culture. “Such pedagogy is linked to democracy and social chance […] with a view that a public educated in the appropriate knowledge will influence the adoption of public policy” ((Sandlin, O’Malley, & Burdick, 2011, p. 355). This view is a hallmark of “the hegemony of popular culture and neoliberalism” ((Sandlin, O’Malley, & Burdick, 2011, p. 355) that scholars like Gramsci and Giroux have resisted. Educators and those engaged in oppositional socio-cultural work, then, have a role in revealing or explaining the operations of neoliberalism to the rest of the culture. The educator figured in such a way led Edward to Said to theorize the exile pedagogue existing on the margins. Giroux builds on this through the public intellectual that is “centered centered around but not confined to the classroom, forming alliances beyond the classroom with students, parents, and community organizers to link critical imagination with public activism” ((Sandlin, O’Malley, & Burdick, 2011, p. 356).
Such pedagogy of social action is theorized as happening in the public sphere. But I’m trying to figure how a formal site of learning–like a writing center on a college campus–can also be an informal site of resistance. But I’m also NOT talking about having an explicit social justice mission or being a designated safe space; while the impetus behind such efforts is well-intended, such markers can sometimes be more symbolic than actual. I’m talking about naming the humanity that is necessarily a writer center. Maybe I’m just trying to show how public pedagogy moves between writing centers and other locations in tutors’ lives.
Rhetorical Notes 