Interrupting, Infiltrating, Investigating: Radical Youth Pedagogy in Education

Frustration can often be stagnating, but it can also encourage action, change, and lead to hope. From the silencing of Indigenous cultures, to the legislation of gendered pedagogy, we are frustrated by educational spaces overshadowed by robotic pedagogy and curriculum that continually fails to recognize the cultures that already exist in those spaces, perhaps most notably, youth culture. The contributions within this volume speak deeply about the radical potentials, challenges, and hopes of a youth-focussed and/or led pedagogy in education. They show possibility, and modest, ethical, and transformative ways of interrupting, infiltrating, and investigating radical youth pedagogy that are not complete but partial, reflective and on-going: we propose radical youth pedagogy as a framework for opening of critical spaces for thinking, doing, being, and performing that can better acknowledge the power and potential in young people, but also practice skills for them to thrive in and beyond education. Radical youth pedagogy means interrupting the silences, exclusions, patterns of dominance and status quo practices of pedagogy, policy, curriculum, and assessment. It means infiltrating with artful and arts-based thinking, writing, production, and practice in ways that connect youth to curriculum, their surroundings, and each other in positive and transformative ways. It also means investigating educator practices, approaches, and even school structures to better support youth in education and throughout their lives. It is our hope that this edited collection may act as a theoretical and practical toolbox for educators wishing to radicalize their educational approaches while disrupting normalized pedagogy and classroom cultures.

KC Schmitz - Senior Policy Analyst in Education and Poverty reduction for Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami. PhD in Education from the University of Ottawa. Her research focus is on digital education, digital culture and learning environments, and revitalization of language and culture using digital technology and online spaces.

Cotnam-Kappel - Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa, received doctorates from the Université de Corse Pascal Paoli and the University of Ottawa and completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Harvard University. Her research is focused on youth voice, minority language education and educational technology.

NE Grant - PhD Candidate at the University of Ottawa, completing thesis work on cyborgian embodiment for antiracism practices in digitally saturated contexts. She has published several co-authored and solo authored chapters and articles on social knowledge production of racisms in award-winning collections.