ABSTRACT
This chapter gives an overview of a three-year critical pedagogy practice implemented at the study’s second research site in Hong Kong. Data analysis explores how Bollywood films popular with students, such as “3 Idiots”, were used to study generative themes of education, love, and familial/peer conflicts, and build English language academic literacy. Moreover, data analysis reveals how the author, as teacher, used popular culture to mediate acts of self-revelation in order to invite to take action on conflicts they experienced. The chapter also highlights how themes not necessarily emerging directly from students’ daily experiences were used for academic study, and to advance students’ critical understanding in the world. Finally, the chapter addresses difficulties of implementing a critical pedagogy while arguing that some students were empowered through the curriculum in terms of the spaces for expression and voice they were provided, and vocabulary and social critique that moved them toward transformative resistance.
