Silvia Bettez

University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Educational Leadership and Cultural Foundations, Faculty Member

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Dr. Bettez teaches about issues of social justice in a graduate program including classes such as Teaching Social Justice and Sociology of Education. Her scholarship centralizes social justice with a focus on fostering critical community building, teaching for social justice, and promoting equity through intercultural communication and engagement. She has published articles in several journals. She is the current president of the American Educational Studies Association.

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Muqtedar Khan

University of Delaware

Mariya Ivancheva

University of Strathclyde, Glasgow

Paul R Carr

Université du Québec en Outaouais

Mehdi Riazi

Hamad Bin Khalifa University

David Seamon

Kansas State University

Martin O'Neill

University of York

Wayne Au

University of Washington Bothell

Andrew W Wilkins

Goldsmiths, University of London

Alison G Dover

California State University, Fullerton

Viacheslav Kuleshov

Stockholm University

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Papers by Silvia Bettez

The Persistence of and Challenges to Whiteness in Parent Engagement

American Journal of Education

Walking the Tightrope of Self-Care and Critical Mentoring

BRILL eBooks, Jun 19, 2020

Multiracial Feminism

The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2007

Creating Community Commitments in the Higher Education Classroom

About Campus: Enriching the Student Learning Experience, 2020

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Moving from Individual Consciousness Raising to Critical Community Building Praxis

In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire (2000: 169) writes that no one can ‘unveil the world for ano... more In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire (2000: 169) writes that no one can ‘unveil the world for another&#39;. He asserts that while ‘one Subject may initiate the unveiling&#39;, all involved ‘must also become Subjects of this act’ (Freire, 2000: 169). Critical pedagogy is understood then as ‘co-intentional education&#39;, where teachers and learners are subjects ‘not only in the task of unveiling’ the social world and their place in it and ‘coming to know it critically&#39;, but also ‘in the task of re-creating that knowledge’ (Freire, 2000: 69), in efforts towards liberation for all. At the heart of the struggle for liberation through education for critical consciousness then is this dynamic where people come and become together as ‘co-subjects’ (Freire, 2000: 169). But what does this ‘authentic praxis’ (Freire, 2000: 169) in which people are ‘co-subjects’ (2000: 169) in and through critical consciousness raising and engagement and, more generally, critical pedagogy, look, feel, and move like? How do we create and sustain this with our students? While we agree that critical pedagogy is not about ‘an a priori method that simply can be applied regardless of context’ (Giroux, 2011: 4), we believe that the individually focused philosophical orientations and practical approaches present in the existing literature severely limit us in pursuing its aim. Believing that ‘the struggle for liberation is a common task’ (Freire, 2000: 176), we are called to, as hooks (2010: 43) says, ‘break with the notion that our experience of gaining knowledge is private, individualistic and competitive’ and thus offer critical community building as a praxis orientation for critical pedagogy. In the first half of the chapter we define critical pedagogy and critical consciousness. We then explore the exigent literature on critical pedagogy and the way in which the emphasis on students as individuals, and critical consciousness as an individual endeavor, unintentionally limits the efforts of critical educators to foster and sustain critically and collectively conscious liberatory educational spaces. We then briefly note the work of other scholars who have made similar critiques, adding to them our assertion that a critical community building praxis orientation to critical pedagogy is practicing a prefigurative politic1 as it not only provides the conditions for those involved to re-imagine and re-write the world but also, through the praxis orientation itself, allows those involved to begin to bring such a world to life. In the second half of the chapter we discuss what a critical community building praxis orientation can offer critical pedagogy. In this section we define and discuss critical community building praxis and share the work by which it is informed. We also offer four critical community building practices: (a) configuring the space for maximum interaction among community members, (b) engaging in intentional welcoming/connecting/being present with each other&#39;s practices, (c) creating community commitments, and (d) promoting mind, body, spirit connection in relationships through collective arts-based activities and story sharing. Lastly, within the discussion of each practice, we share practical examples from our teaching experiences.

But Don't Call Me White: Mixed Race Women Exposing Nuances of Privilege and Oppression Politics

Flipping the Script from Talking to Teens about “Celebrating Diversity” to Promoting Equity Through Embracing Vulnerability and Enacting Courage

Multicultural Perspectives, 2017

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Community Building in Social Justice Work: A Critical Approach

Educational Studies, 2013

In this article we argue for the importance of building critical communities as an integral, yet ... more In this article we argue for the importance of building critical communities as an integral, yet neglected, aspect of education for social justice. We begin by defining critical communities and by describing goals and vision for social justice education. We then explore how community is discussed in the education literature, limitations and challenges of calling for community, and images of critical communities in social justice work. We end by exploring the role that individuals can play in nurturing and enabling social justice efforts, offering some strategies to promote community building within and beyond higher education.

All About Love: Teaching and Mentoring for Social Justice

Understanding Education for Social Justice

What does it mean to foreground social justice in our thinking about education? It has become inc... more What does it mean to foreground social justice in our thinking about education? It has become increasingly common for education scholars to claim a social justice orientation in their work (Adams, Bell, & Griffin, 1997; Ayers, Hunt, & Quinn, 1998; Darling-Hammond, French, & Garcia-Lopez, 2002; Marshall & Oliva, 2006; Michelli & Keiser, 2005). At the same time, education programs seem to be adding statements about the importance of social justice to their mission, and a growing number of teacher education programs are fundamentally oriented around a vision of social justice (see, for example, Darling-Hammond, French, & Garcia-Lopez, 2002; McDonald, 2005; Zollers, Albert, & Cochran-Smith, 2000). Murphy (1999) names social justice as one of "three powerful synthesizing paradigms" (p. 54) in educational leadership while Zeichner (2003) offers it as one of three major approaches to teacher education reform. The phrase social justice is used in school mission statements, job ann...

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But Don’t Call Me White

The Queer Love Project

GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies

Multiracial Youth Identity Meta-Ethnography

Oxford Scholarship Online

Textured Dialogues: A Community Project about Immigrants' Multimodal Perspectives on the Meaning of Education

Multicultural Perspectives

Feeling Brown in the Academy: Decolonizing Mentoring Through a Disidentification Muxerista Approach

Equity & Excellence in Education, 2017

Feminism, Multiracial

by Silvia Bettez and Cherese Childers-McKee, Ph.D.