NCJ Number
195236
Journal
Journal of Criminal Justice Education Volume: 13 Issue: 1 Dated: Spring 2002 Pages: 1-23
Date Published
2002
Length
23 pages
Annotation
This study analyzed critical pedagogy in an effort to develop an approach to justice education that can lead to the formation of a critical consciousness.
Abstract
This study was based on an experimental course for justice- studies students that was designed to challenge traditional criminal justice pedagogies, with "pedagogy" defined as the "process of knowledge production." It emphasizes the power-knowledge connection and relies on dialogical methods that expose contradictions and lead to critical questioning. The research objective was to measure how students' subjective perceptions were changed with the critical pedagogy and how these changes impacted the possibility of social change. This research was based on the proposition that the greater the change in subjective perceptions of participants through dialogical education, the greater the likelihood of "Conscientization" (redefining of an individual's experience of his/her boundary systems and a recreation of his/her own self-image) toward the manifestation of human agency through social change. The study was conducted at Arizona State University in the School of Justice Studies during the spring of 1995. The subjects consisted of 73 students enrolled in Introduction to Justice Studies (JUS 105). Pretests were conducted at the beginning of the semester by using the Associative Group Analysis (AGA) method. This method of analysis uses a free association technique through administering written response association to stimulus words presented on randomly sequenced cards in a one-minute time frame. After the cards are organized by stimulus word, responses are formed into group response lists. A systematic content analysis is required to identify trends in perceptions and attitudes of the respondents. The AGA was used in this study to measure comprehension of 20 selected course concepts; posttests were conducted at the end of the course by using the same concepts and methods. It was hypothesized that students enrolled in JUS 105 would exhibit knowledge consistent with a more critical curriculum that emphasizes the epistemology and ontology of justice rather than a more traditional, positivistic view of justice that predominantly operates from a criminal justice discourse. The innovative curriculum of JUS 105 is grounded in critical pedagogy, focusing on criminal justice only as one component of the larger ontological and epistemological framework of justice. This study found a change in the identities of the participants that was evident in the shift in subjective perceptions. The AGA method, however, did not provide conclusive evidence that the curricular strategy proposed was the only variable that effected those changes; nonetheless, these cognitive shifts are intrinsically significant, because these perceptual changes altered the identity of students, as they developed an increased awareness of their role as agents of social change. 40 references