Critical Storytelling in Uncritical Times shares the stories of undergraduate students and educators in U.S. higher education. Storytellers in this volume grapple with issues of bullying, stigma surrounding mental health, cultural barriers, gender inequity, and other forms of struggle in educational settings. The disciplinary backgrounds of the authors are diverse, including Psychology, English, Communication Studies, Business, and Educational Foundations. The authors write stories about their role(s) in resisting (or failing to resist) oppressive conditions in schooling, and their contributions draw attention to critical problems in 21st century. This anthology was planned, written, and edited by students and four faculty members. The stories shared in each chapter were completely at the discretion of the contributor. By making themselves vulnerable, participants investigated stories of personal and social import. This book engages a community of critical voices in an age where critical storytelling has never mattered more. “Critical Storytellling in Uncritical Times is a pulsating work of self and social discovery, where autoethnographic accounts of high school students, pre-service teachers and teachers are assembled into a ‘cut and mix, ’ a flux-and-change ethnographic prism that enables readers to view students as educators and educators and future educators as students. It is a book that shows how alliances for social justice can be formed that transcend race, class, age, gender, sexuality and social capital. All of us in the teaching profession would do well to read this book together with their students.” – Peter Mc Laren, Distinguished Professor, Chapman University
Cuprins
Preface; Stories of Marginalization, Silencing, and Alienation; Pagan Religion in the 21st Century: Myths, Stereotypes, and Mass-Media Misrepresentations of Multicultural Spirituality; Gender and the Media: Degradation of Women in Popular Culture; Silent Judgments: How I Came to Terms with Depression; To Be Continued…; First Day of School; Mom, I’m Gay; Identity Politics, Sexism, Racism, and Relationships; Assimilation of an Alien; “Brain Dead”: Words as Weapons in the Cultural Sanctioning of Bullying Practices; College Student, Future Educator, Not an “Anchor Baby”; Growing up without a Father; My Realization; My Life with Trichotillomania; A Letter to the Faceless; Angels of the Night; Family Ties; Mental Health, the Body, and Issues of Stigmatization; Who Am I? Struggling with My Identity; Judging from the Outside; A Kind of My Own; “Hey, Sister”: Utterances, Sexualities, and Dialectical Tensions in Sibling Relationships; Mean Girls, Interrupted: The Complexities of Female Friendship; My Personal Hell: Becoming a Hardened Machine at Hardee’s; Coming up from the Depths: Dealing with Depression, Anxiety, and Eating Disorders; About the Contributors; Index.