Abstract

MCDONALD, Jared  and  UNDERHILL, Jenni. "Making history familiar": The past in service of self - awareness and critical citizenship. Y&T [online]. 2014, n.11, pp.54-71. ISSN 2309-9003.

This paper explores the process ofself-reflection undertaken by a History lecturer with a view to promoting the same type of critical awareness among a group of third- year History students at a South African university. The study draws on student experiences of and responses to a critical pedagogy that offered a deconstruction of past identities and enabled an emerging discourse of agency with contemporary relevance. By means of a qualitative methodological approach, open-ended, reflective questionnaires were used amongst a focus group to gauge student perspectives. The paper concludes that via creative and innovative pedagogy, History can become a vehicle for promoting self-awareness and in turn critical citizenship in South Africa's current social context.

Keywords : Self-awareness; Critical citizenship; Pedagogy; Identity; Social history; Reflective practice; Subjectivity; Social justice.

        · text in English     · English ( pdf )