Critical pragmatism and critical advocacy: Addressing the challenges of openness [1492] Members : #OER17

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Wed, Apr 5 2017, 3:00pm – 4:20pm

Authors: Catherine Cronin, and Laura Czerniewicz

Room: Seminar 4

Theme: Inst/Org Politics

Type: Presentations

Description

We are two among many critical scholars of openness. Critical scholars maintain a sense of hope and possibility while simultaneously revealing challenges faced by educators when trying to implement programs for social change (Cahnmann & Varghese, 2005). Our OER17 proposal is presented in the spirit of continuing a vitally important conversation within the open education movement about openness and criticality (e.g. Miller, 2016; Rolfe, 2016). We begin by considering some of the challenges we face with respect to ‘open’, particularly but not only in higher education:

Challenges of individuals within the open movement wearing different hats (advocate, researcher, practitioner)
Blindness within the open movement – what don’t we see?
Notions of ‘purity’ with respect to openness – who gets to define/interpret openness?
Ways that openness gets appropriated by other agendas

We then explore two concepts which we believe help to illuminate and address these challenges: critical pragmatism and critical advocacy. Critical pragmatism looks for systematic silences or distortions in communication and aims to open new channels for experience to flow in order to address problems and challenges (Feinberg, 2015). Critical pragmatism with respect to openness is linked to risks of being purist in the open movement. For example, does a strict definition of open as ‘legally open’ mean that as open education researchers we may close our minds to practices as they exist? (see Smith, 2016; Wiley, 2016). These and similar questions require our attention as critical researchers.

Critical advocacy seeks to identify the ideological elements and institutional mechanisms sustaining conditions of inequality. The goal of critical advocacy work is to promote interdependence, mutuality, reciprocity, and just relations between groups (Mendoza, 2015). Critical advocacy of openness is grounded in critique and dialogue about the possibilities of openness as well as the limits, risks, and struggles — for individuals, organisations, and institutions. Critical advocacy requires critical, dialogic and comparative research.

After exploring these two strands of critical theory, we will engage participants in a discussion of how openness is experienced in particular contexts, and how critical pragmatism and critical advocacy might help us in developing fruitful strategies for change with respect to OER, OEP, and open education in general.

References:

Cahnmann, M. and Varghese, M. (2005). Critical Advocacy and Bilingual Education in the United States. Linguistics and Education, 16(1).

Feinberg, W. (2015). Critical Pragmatism and the Appropriation of Ethnography by Philosophy of Education. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 34(2).

Mendoza, S.L. (2015). Critical Advocacy Research. SAGE Encyclopedia of Intercultural Competence.

Miller, J. (2016). Open education as a Real Utopia. OpenEd16 Conference. 4 November. http://www.slideshare.net/JamisonMiller/open-education-as-a-real-utopia

Rolfe, V. Open. But not for criticism? OpenEd16 Conference. 2 November. http://vivrolfe.com/blog/open-but-not-for-criticism/

Smith, M. (2016). Open is as open does. ROER4D Newsletter. (February-March 2016). http://roer4d.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/ROER4D-Newsletter-February-March-2016.pdf

Wiley, D. (2016). The consensus around “open” [Blog]. 29 January. http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/4397

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