Date of Award
2023
Document Type
Dissertation
Copyright Status, No Creative Commons License
All Rights Reserved
Degree Name
Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) in Educational Leadership for Diverse Learning Communities
Department
Education
School
School of Education and Human Services
Abstract
Critical praxis is an important means of increasing educators' critical consciousness. Culture circles are one avenue for educators to engage in a critical praxis, to dialogue, listen, reflect, and develop direct action steps. Both critical consciousness (Freire) and an ethic of care (Noddings) are essential and require an ongoing critical praxis. However, there is a lack of educational research on culture circles for ongoing praxis. In this auto/ethnographic, qualitative, action research (AR) study, the researcher created and explored a culture circle of six K-12 teachers. Over the course of five 90- minute sessions, the participants and the researcher raised situational experiences in their educational contexts for critical conversations. The analysis of the culture circle transcripts, informal interviews, and researcher reflexive journals showed that the culture circle educators a) problematized issues facing their social justice and equity efforts, b) connected emotionally and culturally to themselves, one another and their students, c) created direct action steps in their teaching and learning community as they (re)awakened their critical consciousness. The researcher posits that engaging in a critical praxis within a culture circle builds educators’ capacity to teach with care and criticality in their racially/ethnically and linguistically diverse learning communities. The study provides research-based evidence in support of utilizing culture circles as a method to foster a critical praxis for preservice in-service professional learning. Limitations, implications, and recommendations for educators and educational researchers are discussed.
Related Pillar(s)
Study
Recommended Citation
Daniels, Christine, "Journeying Towards Connection in a Culture Circle with Six K-12 Educators: An Autoethnographic Study of Critical Praxis" (2023). Theses & Dissertations. 199.
https://digitalcommons.molloy.edu/etd/199
