Introductory description

How does change happen? What foundational behaviours and patterns of thought are drawn upon by those who seek to make change? Where does change take place? What are its origins? Is change a natural value, a natural movement for human beings? What is the role of hope, and of despair. How do we engage critically with ideas and practices of change? What can we learn from artists, scientists, activists and educators?

In this module we’ll have the opportunity to work with students from right across the university to investigate the ways in which the imperative for change is understood and acted upon. Together, we will explore our own perspectives and place within communities with a view to understanding ─ and perhaps making  ─ meaningful change.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Indicative Weekly Structure:

Week 1 Critical Contemplation: Paying Attention, Beginning Here

Week 2 Critical Theory and Critical Pedagogy: The Imperative for Change

Week 3 Imagining Better: Change Festival

Week 4 Action Research: Asking Questions, Making Webs of Collaboration, Taking Action

Week 5 Advancing Youth of Colour: Thriving through Mindfulness and Critical Contemplative Approaches (A Case Study)

Week 6 Project Development Week: reading and independent study [NO CLASS]

Week 7 The Psychology of Change: From Microbes to Culture

Week 8 Hope, Anger, Fear: the role of emotion in inciting and sustaining engagement and action.

Week 9 Spaces and places of change

Week 10 What now, what next?

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Engage with and critique the idea of contemplative practices as foundational to understanding and enacting change.
• Demonstrate a developed critical understanding of the imperative of agency toward change within a critical, epistemological context.
• Analyse the complexity and context of power, positionality, privilege and intersectionality.
• Critically “read” their world, and identify, analyse and articulate patterns of oppression and opportunities for change
• Locate themselves as subjects within history, and imagine transformations of a social, political, economic, ideological and/or ethical nature.

Indicative reading list

Illustrative Bibliography

Key Readings:

Agamben, G. (1993). The coming community. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Edwards, D., et al. (2017). The Activist’s Ally: contemplative tools for social change. Northampton, MA.

Freire, P., & Freire, A. M. A. j. (2007). Daring to dream : toward a pedagogy of the unfinished. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.

Giroux, H. A. (2011). On critical pedagogy. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group.

Giroux, H. A. (1997). Pedagogy and the politics of hope : theory, culture, and schooling : a critical reader. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.

Greene, M. (1995). Releasing the imagination : essays on education, the arts, and social change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Hooks, b. (2003). Teaching community : a pedagogy of hope. New York: Routledge.

Hooks, b. (2009). Belonging : a culture of place. New York: Routledge.

Kaufman, P. (2017). Critical contemplative Pedagogy. Radical Pedagogy 14 (1)

Lorde, A. (2017). Your silence will not protect you. Uk: Silver Press.

Reason, P., & Bradbury, H. (2008). The SAGE handbook of action research : participative inquiry and practice (2nd ed. ed.). Los Angeles, Calif. ; London: SAGE.

Solnit, R. (2006). Hope in the dark : untold histories, wild possibilities (New, expanded ed.). New York

Recommended Readings:

Freire, P. (2013). Education for critical consciousness. London ; New York: Bloomsbury Academic.

Freire, P. (1998). Pedagogy of freedom : ethics, democracy, and civic courage. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Freire, P. (1970). Cultural action for freedom. Cambridge: Harvard educational review.

Freire, P., & Freire, P. (1976). Education, the practice of freedom. London: Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative.

Gilbert, P. and Choden (2013) Mindful Compassion: Using the Power of Mindfulness and Compassion to Transform our Lives. Robinson.

Hooks, b. (2000). All about love : new visions (1st ed.). New York: William Morrow.

Lykes, M. B., Lloyd, C. R., & Nicholson, K. M. (2018). Participatory and Action Research Within and Beyond the Academy: Contesting Racism through Decolonial Praxis and Teaching "Against the Grain". Am J Community Psychol, 62(3-4), 406-418.

Palmer, P. J. (2017). The courage to teach : exploring the inner landscape of a teacher's life (Twentieth anniversary edition. ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Jossey-Bass.

Palmer, P. J., Zajonc, A., & Scribner, M. (2010). The heart of higher education : a call to renewal : transforming the academy through collegial conversations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Ragoonaden, K. (2015). Mindful teaching and learning : developing a pedagogy of well-being. Lanham: Lexington Books.

Stringer, E. T. (1996). Action research : a handbook for practitioners. Thousand Oaks, Calif. ; London: Sage.

Zajonc, A. (2009) Meditation As Contemplative Inquiry: When Knowing Becomes Love. Massachusetts: Lindisfarne Books.

Wider Readings:

Bach, D.J. and Alexander, J. (2015) Contemplative Approaches to Reading and Writing: Cultivating Choice, Connectedness, and Wholeheartedness in the Critical Humanities, The Journal of Contemplative Inquiry. 2, 1.

Barbezat, D., & Bush, M. (2014). Contemplative practices in higher education : powerful methods to transform teaching and learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, a Wiley brand.

Coeckelbergh, M. (2010). Engineering good: how engineering metaphors help us to understand the moral life and change society. Sci Eng Ethics, 16(2), 371-385.

Donahue, M., Spates, J. L., & Birnbaum, M. (1972). Action research handbook for social change in urban America. New York,: Harper & Row.

Freire, P., & Macedo, D. P. (1987). Literacy: reading the word & the world. South Hadley, Mass.: Bergin & Garvey Publishers.

Greene, M., & Lincoln Center Institute. (2001). Variations on a blue guitar : the Lincoln Center Institute lectures on aesthetic education. New York: Teachers College Press.

Hooks, b., & Mesa-Bains, A. (2018). Homegrown : engaged cultural criticism. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

Gunnlaugson, O. (2014). Contemplative learning and inquiry across disciplines. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Gunnlaugson, O. (2017). The intersubjective turn : theoretical approaches to contemplative learning and inquiry across disciplines. Albany: SUNY Press.

hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress : education as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge.

hooks, b. (2000). Where we stand : class matters. New York: Routledge.

hooks, b. (2004). The will to change : men, masculinity, and love. New York: Atria Books.

Kaufman, D., Moss, D. M., & Osborn, T. A. (2003). Beyond the boundaries : a transdisciplinary approach to learning and teaching. Westport, Conn.: Praeger.

Lakoff, G. (2014). Mapping the brain's metaphor circuitry: metaphorical thought in everyday reason. Front Hum Neurosci, 8, 958.

Lin, J., R. L. Oxford, and E. J. Brantmeier, eds. 2013. Re-Envisioning Higher Education: Embodied Pathways to Wisdom and Social Transformation. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Ndura-Ouédraogo, E., & Amster, R. (2009). Building cultures of peace : transdisciplinary voices of hope and action. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.

Nikolakaki, M., Giroux, H., & Freire, A.-M. (2012). Critical pedagogy in the new dark ages : challenges and possibilities. New York: Peter Lang.

Schlesinger, M. (2006). Webs, levers, and other metaphors for influence over policy change. J Health Polit Policy Law, 31(5), 883-886.

Schonert-Reichl, K.A. and Roeser, R.W. eds. (2016) Handbook of Mindfulness in Education: Integrating Theory and Research into Practice. New York: Springer.

Sendall, M. C., McCosker, L. K., Brodie, A., Hill, M., & Crane, P. (2018). Participatory action research, mixed methods, and research teams: learning from philosophically juxtaposed methodologies for optimal research outcomes. BMC Med Res Methodol, 18(1), 167.

Solnit, R. (2014). Men explain things to me. Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books.

Solnit, R. (2018). Call them by their true names : American crises (and essays). Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books.

Woods, R., Fernandez, A., & Coen, S. (2012). The use of religious metaphors by UK newspapers to describe and denigrate climate change. Public Underst Sci, 21(3), 323-339.

Research element

Students will explore action research methodology and will focus on the following questions: What are the primary tenets and approaches of action research? Are inquiry and collaboration essential to change? How can action research lead to action? Students will then be encouraged to undertake their own research utilising methodologies presented during the module.

Interdisciplinary

The module will provide an interdisciplinary opportunity for undergraduate students at Warwick to work with an international cohort of experts and practitioners engaged with analysing and making social change. Students will have an opportunity to engage critically with literature, practice and will be required to design a project for their assessment bringing about change and locating their efforts within theoretical frameworks of change.

International

The module will provide an interdisciplinary opportunity for undergraduate students at Warwick to work with an international cohort of experts and practitioners engaged with analysing and making social change.

Subject specific skills

Students on this module will develop skills to enable them to engage with and critique the idea of contemplative practices as foundational to understanding and enacting change, to be able to critically “read” their world, and articulate patterns of oppression and opportunities for change and be able to locate themselves as subjects within history, and imagine transformations of a social, political, economic, ideological and/or ethical nature.

Transferable skills

• Action research skills
• Analytical skills
• Critical reflection
• Critical thinking
• Managing change
• Networking skills
• Verbal communication skills
• Written communication skills