What this also means is that the dialogical relationships in a
pedagogy for social transformation must not hide from but must
confront the real differences which participants bring to the
dialogue. Speaking of this need to reflexively confront the "hard
questions" within the framework of a dialogical pedagogy, Henry
Giroux, amongst others, has noted the importance of stories as a
basis for establishing a student voice. Within the framework of a
dialogical relationship, however, he reminds us that we must be
constantly mindful that stories are never neutral, being always tied
to particular memories, modes of experience, narratives and
histories. We must move beyond the naive belief that participants
are innocent, and within the framework of a critical dialogue,
interrogate them as part of a political project which reveals the
moral consistencies and inconsistencies which are reflective of
their formative social contexts. In other words:
"It is important to construct a pedagogy of voice and
difference around the recognition that some practices
(voices/stories) define themselves through the suppression
of other voices, support forms of human suffering, and
require an explicit moral and political condemnation on the
part of the teacher. Questions of racism and sexism, for
instance, cannot be treated as topics of merely academic
interest."
It is in the process of collective work, rather than collective
dialogue alone, that the critical aspects of solidarity are located -
in jointly naming and solving problems, in identifying common
elements of experience, of oppression, but in noting at the same
time individual differences which give perspective and meaning to
the commonalities. Working extensively with students from
excluded majority backgrounds in California and Aotearoa-New
Zealand, I have found their emerging sense of solidarity-incultural-identity more than adequately compensates to counteractthe symbolic power which I, as the teacher, bring to the class andotherwise struggle to discard.