Critical Collaborative Inquiries in Social Studies: Fostering Inclusion, Engagement and Literacy

Collaborative inquiry groups are a well-advocated tool to support comprehension and collaboration, but how do critical collaborative inquiries support students with different levels of engagement and academic performances in social studies to develop critical literacies? This article responds to this research question through case studies of two high school students who engaged in a critical collaborative inquiry project. One student was a senior labeled with disabilities, who struggled with academic literacies, graduated at the bottom of her class, and said that she hated school. The other student was a junior who thrived in school, mastered a range of academic literacies, graduated near the top of her class, and felt very engaged in school. These students were part of an elective social studies class open to all students in grades 9-12 taught with a negotiated curriculum that centered on individual and critical collaborative inquiry projects. This article focuses on a critical collaborative inquiry project and the individual responses, engagement, and growth of two high school students. Each student engaged with critical inquiry and grew in quite different ways, while participating in the same class and working on many of the same projects. Their experiences and reflections help to answer the research question, how do critical collaborative inquiries support students with different levels of engagement and academic performances in social studies to develop critical literacies? Theoretical Framework This study is grounded in socio-cultural literacy theories (Haas-Dyson, 2004; Heath, 2004) and focuses on the development of critical literacies in social studies through engagement in critical collaborative inquiries. Critical literacies are pedagogical and theoretical understandings of literacy that focus on critical analyses of language, multi-genre and multimedia texts, power, and norms with an aim towards disrupting social inequalities, revealing ideologies and dominant discourses, and taking action for social justice (Comber & Simpson, 2001; Janks, 1993; Rogers, 2002; Shor, 1987). While much critical literacy research has centered on the socio-political issues of race and social class, there is a growing body of researchers that are including a focus on sexual orientation (Blackburn, 2002, 2003, 2005; Martino, 2001, 2009; Mattson, 2008; Unks, 2003; Young, 2007, 2009, 2010). 1 Young: Critical Collaborative Inquiries Published by Scholar Commons, 2017 Inquiry-based learning can be used to support students’ critical literacy development. Inquiry-based learning centers on students’ problems or questions and allows them to do the asking, researching, and answering of their own questions with a teacher facilitating the inquiry process. Collaborative inquiry groups are a well-documented tool to support comprehension and collaboration across subject areas and grade levels (Harvey & Daniels, 2015; Ohn & Wade, 2009). Critical inquiry involves engaging students in problematizing, critique, and inquiry (Fecho, 2004; Franzak & Noll, 2006). Laman, Smith, and Kander (2006), use the work of Edelsky, Christensen, Vasquez and others to demonstrate the connection between critical literacy, critical inquiry, and action. Critical inquiry weaves critical literacy practices throughout the curriculum and offers children prolonged engagement with issues that are important to them and important to democracy. In such contexts, children read against texts, re-envision the world they live in, and take action within that world. (Laman et al., 2006, p.204) I define a critical collaborative inquiry as an open inquiry (Harvey & Daniels, 2015) or negotiated curriculum project that is grounded in social justice, where students collaboratively choose the area of inquiry, conduct research, reflect, ask larger questions, problematize, critique, synthesize, and ultimately create a way of demonstrating their learning through taking social action. Through critical collaborative inquiry students are able to further refine their critical literacy skills. Collaborative inquiry research has been documented across subject areas and grade levels, but does not focus on one of the key challenges of teachers: engaging and scaffolding students with a range of literacy skills and participation in school. For example, Powell, Cantrell, and Adams (2001) document an inquiry project with a fourth grade class near Lexington, Kentucky whose inquiry led them to join Appalachian students in taking action to save Black Mountain from strip mining. While this project included elements of critical collaborative inquiry, the emphasis was on the whole group, rather than individual students with a range of academic skills and various levels of engagement in school, coming together through critical collaborative inquiry. Boozer, Maras, and Brummett (1999) examine how “critical talk” does not always move to “critical study and action” (p. 62). In their classroom study of group homes, students who did not live in group homes were moved personally, but along with their teachers, failed to ask larger political and systemic questions that might lead to action. In a second study with a different class, students were able to follow through and take action to challenge a reward system that they 2 Journal of Practitioner Research, Vol. 2 [2017], Iss. 1, Art. 3 https://scholarcommons.usf. edu/jpr/vol2/iss1/3 DOI: <p>http://doi.org/10.5038/2379-9951.2. 1.1053</p> viewed as unjust. The major limiting factors to enacting an action based critical literacy curriculum, which they ran into were lack of time and curricular inflexibility. They also found that although their discussions and actions were critical in nature, their investigations into the root causes and consequences of their topics of study were not. Ultimately through their research, they found, Neither critical study nor action can occur without conversation, for it is the means by which we identify injustice, and determine how we might attempt to alter ourselves and our society to rectify that injustice.without the exchange of ideas we are limited by our own position, unable to imagine possibilities. Without possibilities, there is no change. (Boozer et al., 1999, p. 75) Thus dialogue is directly tied to action and social change, but critical dialogue alone will not necessarily result in action.