Autoethnography as Pragmatic Scholarship: Moving Critical Communication Pedagogy from Ideology to Praxis

Abstract

Instructors are often unaware of the negative impact that their own pedagogical practices can have on their students—practices that can lead to student subjugation. I contend that, for instructors to move from Freire’s (1970) notion of the traditional banking concept of education that fosters hegemony to critical communication pedagogy, instructors must first reflexively examine the ways in which they may be subjugating their students. To do so, I advocate that instructors engage in autoethnographic writing about their own teaching to gain knowledge necessary to move toward implementation of critical communication pedagogy. In sum, I argue for the advancement of autoethnography as pragmatic scholarship that can potentially bridge the gap from critical communication pedagogy as ideology to critical communication pedagogy as praxis.