Student Rent-Strikes Hope Through Unplanned Critical Pedagogy

Abstract

We explore a site of unplanned, informal critical pedagogy and how raising critical conscious occurs. During the Covid-19 pandemic, some students in England were required to pay rent for accommodation they could not occupy, or which offered reduced amenities. These largely first-year undergraduates had yet to meet each other. Nonetheless, these students – many of whom are not the traditionally ‘oppressed’ - joined together to resist collectively, refusing to pay rent. Their action resulted in some partial victories. Through the lens of Freire’s critical pedagogy, we examine students’ lived experiences of participating in rent-strikes – using semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis. Ideas of dialogue, praxis and learning with others through collective resistance, pervade the data. The research fleshes-out these stages which interweave to raise critical consciousness. This offers a site of critical hope, providing insights into possibilities for realising critical pedagogy across a wider demographic in spite of a relentless neoliberal agenda.

Keywords:

• critical consciousness,
• critical pedagogy,
• critical hope,
• social movements,
• praxis