Dimension 3.2
Connecting with equity, care, and social justice
Participants in this research share stories of focusing on equity, care, and social justice in their OEPr. This transformational work is where participants' connective skills and fluencies come to “live, learn, and work in an interconnected digital world, enriched by collaboration with others locally and globally” (Martinez-Bravo et al., 2022, p. 6). UNESCO (2013) recognizes the importance of teachers as knowledge gatekeepers who play a crucial role in connecting society, institutions, and individuals, and the importance of tools, resources and competencies in MIL to “guide, teach and train future workers and agents of change” (p. 48) as essential for change-making to occur. Feelings of agency are a component of this crucial role played by teachers and teacher educators, particularly in the process and production of MDL in an OEPr.Although a deeper exploration of theories and concepts relating to the term ‘agency’ may be fruitful grounds for further research as suggested by Biesta et al., (2015), the notion of teacher agency in this research focuses primarily on how the participants’ agency as TEds impacts the building and maintaining of connections. For this research, agency is defined narrowly as a “quality of the engagement of actors with temporal–relational contexts-for-action, not a quality of the actors themselves” (Biesta et al., 2015, p. 626). Agency foregrounds the concept of literacies as a visible and social process (Belshaw, 2011) and results from “the interplay of individual efforts, available resources, and contextual and structural factors as they come together in particular and … unique situations” (Biesta et al., 2015, p. 626).
For this dimension of the discussion, the thinking from Arendt provides a lens through which I can focus on agency within the participants’ lived experiences with MDL and OEPr in how they may “feel empowered to act in public and what spaces and norms must exist for people to engage, alongside others, in the world” (Mihailidis et al., 2021, p. 5). As suggested by Bali and Caines (2018), when considering the participants’ agency in their MDL processes and productions, I recognize differences in their “sense of self-efficacy, confidence, belief in their own agency, and willingness to take ownership, whether this is based on personality, past experience of marginality or power, or intersectional identity” (p 7). From the findings I notice that participants’ feelings of agency in relation to MDL are shaped by their connectedness, and their belief that connections are transformative, particularly when equity, care, and social justice are at the forefront in fostering relationships, collaborating, and building on the learning of others. For example, Leonis’ stories of video production reveal how feelings of agency grew while developing their MDL through collaborations with others experienced in YouTube and video creation. Leonis describes a sense of self-efficacy (Bandura, 2012) and confidence, and belief in the transformational power of video production, since these videos focus on TCs and students from marginalized communities. This in turn enhances relationships through the sharing of stories of struggle, building on the learning of those knowledgeable collaborators.
I notice that participants in this research consider connections within their OEPr strategically, with a focus on equity within a social justice framework (Bali & Zamora, 2022; Lambert, 2018), modelling this ethos both implicitly and explicitly. Lambert identifies three principles of social justice applicable to an OEPr – redistributive justice, recognitive justice, and representational justice. Redistributive justice focuses on the availability of free educational resources to ensure affordability and access to course materials (Lambert, 2018), something that is evidenced for example in Andromeda, Aquila, and Rigel's experiences creating open course materials. Recognitive justice focuses on the inclusion of curriculum materials, assignments, and feedback processes that are representative of marginalized and diverse viewpoints and experiences (Lambert, 2018), which is explicitly evident in the experiences of Andromeda, Aquila, Leonis, Orion, Polaris, Perseus, Rigel, and Sabik. Representational justice focuses on self-determination, co-construction, and facilitation so that silenced or marginalized voices and minority viewpoints are grounded within course design processes and production (Lambert, 2018), as exemplified in the lived experiences of Andromeda, Aquila, Lyra, Polaris, and Sabik as shared in their interview stories. Lambert’s redefinition of OEPr includes the “development of free digitally enabled learning materials and experiences primarily by and for the benefit and empowerment of nonprivileged learners who may be underrepresented in education systems or marginalised in their global context” (Lambert, 2018, p. 14). What crystallizes within the findings in this research is how the participants, as TEds who shape the learning experiences of their TCs, provide media production opportunities for marginalised voices to emerge and for silenced voices to gain confidence through facilitation and co-construction as ways and means of connecting these stories through the screen to community and/or global issues and struggles.
Participants, particularly Aquila, Dorado, Leonis, Perseus, Sabik and Vega, seek and find ways to share and collaborate openly with considerations toward equity, diversity, and inclusion (Inamorato dos Santos, 2019). This includes an awareness of the potential for connections and course designs to be inclusive, equitable, and diverse, particularly in how technologies, autonomy, purpose, skills, social supports, and learning materials enable or constrain marginalized populations (Lambert, 2019). Participants in this research recognize and acknowledge the barriers they face such as their need for time, pedagogical and technical supports, and their own pace for professional learning (Inamorato dos Santos, 2019). This is echoed in Sabik’s experiences with equity and care in course work through the co-design of the course syllabus with a focus on decolonizing strategies.
Attention to the issues of care and equity as suggested by Bali and Zamora (2022), where the notion of unconditional hospitality or intentionally equitable hospitality address issues of care and are forefront in how connections are designed within a course. Conversations occurring with a variety of media and digital productions are seen in the findings whereby participants facilitate from a position of caring without devolving to “paternalistic knowledge of how participants wish to be seen and heard, but one that focuses on resisting power dynamics that suppress agency of those furthest from justice, yet opening a hospitable space for each participant to join and participate on their own terms” (Bali & Zamora, 2022, p. 9). Pluim and Hunter (2022) highlight the importance of embedding an ethos of care that is bidirectional and includes mindfulness practices since there is now “a greater pull to design a learning environment that anticipates our students’ social and emotional needs” (p. 301). This reaffirms the words of bell hooks that to “teach in a manner that respects and cares for the souls of our students is essential if we are to provide the necessary conditions where learning can most deeply and intimately begin” (bell hooks, 1994, p. 13). This highlights the critical importance participants place on creating space for media productions and media-making processes that model, critique, and exemplify an OEPr that is equitable, caring and socially just.
An element that connects to socially just educational practices and teaching for resistance, particularly those within an OEPr, emerges from the notion of epistemic justice as outlined by Wallis and Rocha (2022). These authors draw on José Medina’s conceptual framework of epistemic injustice to identify learning design choices and group activities with a focus on testimony, epistemic virtue, epistemic vice, epistemic friction, meta-insensitivity and meta-lucidity. Although this may be worthy of deeper reflection, a brief glance illuminates how being socially connecting with others in meaningful ways can enhance equity, care, and socially just practices in teaching and learning. This is echoed in Santo's (2013) notions of critical participatory cultures grounded in ‘hacker literacies’ which are often viewed as counter-cultural and apply resistive approaches when acquiring MDL. Opportunities include building individual expertise, guiding learners in turn-taking, emphasizing factual feedback, and evaluating the learning process (Wallis & Rocha, 2022). Learning activities such as social annotations that include critical commentary, explanatory notes or personal meanings (Danesi, 2000) such as jigsaw, think-pair-share, and challenge cycles are suggested as strategies to design for epistemic justice through beneficial epistemic friction (Wallis & Rocha, 2022).
One final component relevant to this dimension on connections comes from Mihailidis' et al., (2021) exploration into three core assumptions for media literacy: “media literacy creates knowledgeable individuals, empowers communities, and encourages democratic participation” (Mihailidis et al., 2021, p. 1). Mihailidis et al,. (2021) suggest the
This speaks of a turn toward MDL practices that follow an educommunication approach. This may offer an alternative pathway for connections and MDL productions within equitable, caring and socially just OEPr.“collective power of the community that’s most important for media literacy practices to thrive” – building a community of practice within and between faculties of education in order to dismantle power structures within siloed systems and critique capitalist competitions between sites. A focus on connecting and building community is hampered by literacy practices which promote “democratic participation but assumes Western Eurocentric approaches and largely ignores the structural inequities perpetuated” (Mihailidis et al, 2021, p. 9).