Subaltern Pedagogy: A Critical Theorizing of Pedagogical Practices for Marginalized Border-Crossers

Abstract

Given the ever-increasing migration in today’s globalizing world and the
pervasive xenophobic behaviors and attitudes of some U.S. school
stakeholders toward vulnerable groups such as refugees, migrants and asylum
seekers, I argue for a paradigm shift in the theorizing of educational
pedagogy. Based on my qualitative study conducted in Lebanon that examines
the lived experiences of African women as border-crossers who migrated to
Beirut for economic reasons, I forward a subaltern pedagogy. Three critical
theoretical frameworks inform this pedagogical shift: critical pedagogy,
post/decolonial thought, and a critical spatial analysis. The latter idea in
particular situates marginalized, subaltern groups in their liminal context
and takes into account how the space one inhabits impacts their social,
cultural and economic worlds, thereby affecting their life and learning
trajectory.