Reckoning with Our Privileges in the CYC Classroom: DeCentring Whiteness, Enacting DeColonial Pedagogies, and Teaching for Social Justice

Abstract

As three white educators working in three different post-secondary contexts, teaching child and youth care (CYC) to diverse undergraduate students, we are interested in exploring the ethical, political, and pedagogical challenges and opportunities of creating learning spaces that can support concrete actions towards decolonizing praxis, social justice, and collective ethics. In order to support each other’s developing praxis, we have recently begun meeting monthly to explore various questions and tensions that exist for us in this work. These meetings have been deeply generative for us in that they have produced a sense of solidary and accountability to each other and our developing pedagogies. This paper attempts to capture some of this experience by sharing three perspectives reflective of the challenges and successes each of us have experienced in our respective institutions.

Keywords:

• social justice,
• pedgogy,
• collective ethics,
• praxis,
• child and youth care education