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Problematizing Public Pedagogy Jake Burdick, Jennifer A. Sandlin and Michael P. O'Malley (Eds.) Routledge, New York, 2014, 212 pages
The breadth of this edited collection on public pedagogy is testimony to the richness of the field. As the title suggests one of the appeals of this book is the very problematisation of the terms public and pedagogy. The editors begin in 'Breaking without Fixing' by signalling the intent of the collection as inhabiting an aporia, "a moment to ask new questions, ones that open the disquieting, yet productive, space of aporia-the intersection between meaning and unmeaning" (p.3). Signalling public pedagogy as such the editors evoke radical possibility. The subsequent chapters are framed through and engage three key terms framing, studying and enacting each as aporetic turns. The chapters question what forms of education exist beyond regulated institutional spaces? Theory allows the re-thinking in the editor's terms of "de/re/ constructing the commonsensical imaginary around educational forms/ phenomena/ephemera" (p.5).
In framing, studying and enacting each section respectively explores- How can public pedagogy be theorised? How is public pedagogy being researched and lastly how is public pedagogy being enacted? When engaging with this collection it is difficult not to read each chapter against the narrowing confinements of the prevalent neo-liberal measurement of skill acquisition; to look at each piece for the possibilities of rushing out into a space where questions are not reductive and outcomes are indeterminate. Despite being largely North American in content some of the chapters offer a re-orientation away from the oppressive framing of curriculum as inert and measurable in contemporary Australian educational institutions. Other chapters offer a reminder of who determines and defines the public realm resulting in the marginalisation and seeking out of alternate public pedagogical spheres. This book needs to be read as distinct chapters despite the thematic placement and the juxtaposition of ideas. In part this is exactly what contributes to the vibrancy of the collection that each contribution shifts the notion of public pedagogy from one positioning to another.
Framing: First Aporetic Turn Dentith, O'Malley and Brady in 'Public Pedagogy as a Historically Feminist Project' note first, second and third wave feminism exemplify the ways in...