| For this project, I am interested in understanding how transformative pedagogies can be beneficial to nontraditional and minority university students. Specifically, I want to show how public university professors use various teaching approaches following transformative frameworks, if they feel these approaches benefit students, and how they developed their pedagogical perspectives. I gathered data through qualitative dialogic methods by interviewing twelve public university professors (N = 12). Analyses illustrate how respondents experienced forms of social injustice, which inspired their transformative consciousness and teaching praxis. Findings also describe various methods respondents employ to provide students with validating transformative educational environments and perceived benefits of these methods. Findings also underscore various institutional constraints educators face when implementing transformative practices. I conclude by providing rationale for the greater institutional inclusion of transformative pedagogies, the expansion of transformative pedagogical research focused on both the student and professor perspectives, and for a dramatic conceptual shift regarding education. This project contributes to the literature by moving beyond theoretical transformative education discussions to examining the lived experiences of those engaged in emancipating forms of teaching and learning. I provide theoretical insights on processes where professors came to develop their transformative pedagogical perspectives and a digital disconnect that may occur with on-line education. |
