Problem Posing & Agency in Dialogic Practice: Exploring Critical Pedagogy in a High School Anatomy Class

Critical pedagogy and science identity research have critiqued equity initiatives focused on increasing access and attainment in science, arguing that dominant science knowledges emphasized in science classrooms perpetuate inequities within and beyond the classroom. Critical pedagogies offer opportunities to challenge deficit perspectives and engage students in new ways of learning and applying science to address inequities and injustices in their communities and in society. This study examines the application of a critical pedagogy approach across three years in a high school Anatomy & Physiology class in an urban district. Drawing on dimensions of critical pedagogies, figured worlds of science and education, the structure-agency dialectic, and the space and place dialectic, I examined how class communities enacted critical pedagogies to reimagine and engage in science for equity and justice. Using teacher research and an embedded case study research design, I analyzed planning documents, student work, and class recordings collected over three years using qualitative methods focused on iterative rounds of coding and derived four findings. First, the structure of dialogic practice that is foundational to critical pedagogies led to students being positioned as problem-posers and sense-makers as they shared their lived experiences and collectively grappled with complex issues. Second, students engaged in different forms of representational agency, including thematizing, characterizing, and relating structures that impact health and considering the affordances and limitations of science in solving health inequities. Third, students engaged in different forms of residential agency that involved both individual and collective action as students asserted their right to healthy outcomes, shared knowledge with others, engaged in collective action, and created or shared resources focused on education and its impact on health. Fourth, teacher and students engaged in dialogic practice within and across school years as student voices about curricular changes were heard and teacher continuous learning influenced the science curriculum. These findings point to the generative possibilities of spaces and places created through the combination of dialogic practice and problem-posing in a classroom centering critical pedagogies. They also highlight the dialectical relationship between representational and residential agency, where the enactment of one form of agency nurtures the other, and the ways that critical pedagogies can create structures that refigure the world of science to one where science is combined with other ways of knowing to identify and ameliorate inequities and injustices in communities. These conclusions have implications for further research and for both teacher practice and teacher education programs.