Foreword

This series begins with an introduction to some foundations of critical thinking. In this book, we discuss the effects on classroom curriculum development and practices of thinking carefully and critically about what we bring to our teaching. We detail one way of developing a critical awareness of each person’s social identity/ies as being comprised of multiple aspects of identities which are simultaneously occupied, and how one person may be both socially privileged and socially marginalized at the same time. We also discuss how these identity categories come together to inform how each of us experiences the world in which we live, including school.

This series of “small books of big ideas” positions all of the participants in the schooling process (students, teacher, parents, policy makers) as agents in an interactive process of knowledge production (Hardiman and Jackson, 2007; Bell and Griffin, 2007). In addition to identifying and recognizing categories of privilege and/or marginalization, we examine the effects of explicit acknowledgement of the systemic operations of the categories of privilege and ask integral questions about the power relations which inform what knowledge and whose knowledge is valued and delineated within a classroom or school setting.

What we know is that most often, it is the students/children who are members of a marginalized group (or more than one such group) who end up being alienated from school and its curricula. Magda Lewis has suggested that all of us are diminished by a school system and educational process that does not “honour the history, culture, social realities, abilities, and diversity of each of us” (Lewis, 1993, page 194).

While our series of “small books of big ideas” each have distinct focus areas, we work to ensure the intersections and effects upon one another are made clear and are explicitly articulated. For example, a person is not “just poor” – they are simultaneously many identity categories and those interplay with one another; to be poor, an immigrant, a person of colour, and a young adult female, will be different than to be poor, white, have a physical disability, and be a middle aged male. Yet often, when a focus is placed on only one category (for example, on poverty and income inequality, which is the foci of Book Two in this series), people are spoken of as if it is the same experience for all of the people who occupy that category.

We share the belief that educators can and must be agents of change so that schooling experiences and processes are accessible and meaningful for all students. Further, we maintain that this work needs to be comprised of more than slogans and empty rhetoric; it needs to be purposeful in both intent and in practice.

We have done our best here to write in a deliberately conversational tone, to unpack and make accessible the ideas of other educators, theorists, and researchers. At the end of each book, we provide a list of suggested resources for those who may wish to further their reading in some area or another which we discuss. We also outline some classroom activities to support the focus of each book.