Love Pedagogy And The Unmaking Of The Nclb Generation

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes the effects of two key U.S. education policies of the 21st century (No Child Left Behind Act and Renaissance 2010) on young people. The work proposes a new framework (love pedagogy) for unmaking and transforming the effects of these policies on poor rural white and black and brown students. It uses Karl Polyani’s The Great Transformation – especially Polanyi’s concept of the “fictitious commodities” of land (in the form of realty), labor (produced by the schools), and money (the capital used to produce and reproduce it all) – to examine case studies from Illinois (City as Classroom School in Chicago) and New York (State University of New York at Albany and Kite’s Nest in Hudson). Employing historical analysis, social movement activist research, and audioethnography, this dissertation investigates how the practice of a love pedagogy, with roots in Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire’s theory of critical pedagogy, re-centers connection, engagement, and the cultivation of genuine relationships as a transformative practice between teachers (and their schools) and students (and their families). In the same way that laws like the No Child Left Behind Act and policies like Renaissance 2010 center their practice on standardization, high-stakes testing, and profit, love pedagogy centers its practice on relationships, social connection, and love. The conclusion, written at the height of the global coronavirus pandemic, outlines two resolutions to the current shift to online learning: a retrenchment of the practices at the foundation of policies like the No Child Left Behind Act and Renaissance 2010, or the opportunity to chart the contemporary education economy onto a vastly different course that will be rooted in a love pedagogy.