Graduation Term

Summer 2026

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

School of Teaching and Learning

Committee Chair

Sonia Kline

Committee Member

Erin Mikulec

Committee Member

Grace Kang

Abstract

This study investigates the question, “How do international graduate students experience and negotiate their encounters with critical pedagogy across time and educational contexts?” The research was motivated by the researcher’s own experience in encountering critical pedagogy and prior studies focusing on critical pedagogy from the teacher perspective. This left a gap in understanding the student experience. The research used the phenomenology paradigm. The participants included six international graduate students in education studies programs. Using the phenomenological interview approach, each participant was asked over a series of three interviews about past experiences of education, their initial encounters with critical pedagogy and how their views and experiences changed over time, and how they envision their futures with critical pedagogy. Techniques including thematic analysis, narrative analysis, and multiple case comparison were used to identify the essence of shared experience. The findings revealed that shared experience spanned past, present and future. In the past, most of the participants had experienced the ‘banking model’ of education: rule-bound, constrained, exam-oriented, and silenced. Students’ first encounters with critical pedagogy came as lived experience, rather than as dry theory. These encounters happened in a common environment, called here the dialogic classroom, which was characterized by engaged teachers, small class size, peer and teacher relationships, and an expectation for students to use their voice. Students still faced challenges, including linguistic barriers and challenging social dynamics, which tended to lessen over time.

All participants viewed critical pedagogy as a tool for their future teaching practice, though they also recognized the barriers they might face in its use. The implication of this research is that there is a shared experience of encountering critical pedagogy, which is worth considering when using it as a pedagogical approach in the classroom and as praxis in policymaking. Further research includes developing the dialogic classroom model as a critical pedagogical praxis and investigating how dialogic structures can support problem-posing learning, co-construction of knowledge, and development of critical consciousness as well as the challenges it creates.

Access Type

Thesis-Open Access

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