Towards a better understanding of Criticality and Conscientization: Two practical applications

You asked us to consider the question "How are the concepts of criticality and conscientization evident in these examples of student activism? So I decided to break it down. I first reminded myself what each of the terms meant.

Criticality is the capacity and ability to read, write, think, and speak in ways to understand power and equity in order to understand and promote anti-oppression.

Conscientization is learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions, and take action against the oppressive element.

From this, I realized how connected they were, but I wanted to merge them into a single framework. And from this, emerges a logical order of investigation. The structure of that framework is described below.

Structure

Elements related to Criticality will be underlined

Elements related to Conscientization will be italicized

Identify "oppressive element" > understand contradictions between power and equity within social, political, and economic systems > take action by promoting anti-oppression organizations and strategies

The following is my analysis of how criticality and conscientization can be applied to school shootings and engage the work of advocacy groups toward the goal of promoting anti-oppression.

School Shootings

Understand

Power & Equity

Social

• Gun culture (link)

  • Ownership (per 100 people)

    • US 120 guns

    • Yemen 53 guns (closest to US)

    • Iceland 32 guns

  • Percentage of all homicides

    • US 79%

    • UK 4%

  • Restrictions

    • Yes

      • Are or lean Democrat

    • No

      • Are Republican

Political

• Minority overruling majority

  • `70%-90% of Americans support some form of gun reform (link)

    • 88% Background checks

    • 84% Prevent sales to at-risk citizens

Economic

• 20 Million in gun sales 2021 (link)

• $5 billion spent to upgrade classrooms to protect against school shootings in the Newtown school district (link)

Take action

Promote anti-oppression

• Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence

• Coalition to Stop Gun Violence

• Everytown for Gun Safety

• Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America

• Mayors Against Illegal Guns

• Third Way

• Gun Free Kids

• Sandy Hook Promise

• Stand with Parkland

• March for Our Lives

Strategies

• Create standards for gun ownership

• Hold gun lobby to account

• Address the root causes of gun violence

  • Bullying

  • Toxic masculinity

  • Mental health

• Promote effective democracy

Censorship

Understand

Power & Equity

Social

• Parental rights organizations

  • No Left Turn

  • Moms for Liberty

• Anti-book censorship organizations

  • American Library Association

  • National Coalition Against Censorship

Political

• Missouri SB 775 - prohibiting sexually explicit material in any school

• Florida's "Don't say gay" bill - would prohibit discussion of gender and sexual identity in classrooms

• Indiana's "Education matters" bills HB 1040 & HB 1362 - would prohibit any educator Kindergarten-College from presenting any ideas related to "sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation" and that "teachers adopt a posture of impartiality in any conversation about controversial historical events"

Economic

• Teachers & The Great Resignation

  • Resignation letter

• Average budget

  • $12,672/year per high school

  • $12.61/student per year

Take action

Promote anti-oppression

• Metro Trans Umbrella Group

• GLSEN

• NAACP

Strategies

• Create values-based standards

  • Diversity, equity, belonging, & mattering

  • Character, love, and compassion

  • Freedom of speech and information

• Hold state and local legislatures to account

• Proactively engage parents in understanding curriculum goals

• Address the root causes of fear

  • Racism

  • Homophobia

  • Social Media/misinformation

• Promote effective democracy

I don't know how much closer this gets one to solving the problem of gun violence and school censorship, but it helped me to 1) understand the issues better, as well as the power & equity relations and contradictions, 2) it furthered my understanding of the application of criticality and conscientization to real issues.