ABSTRACT
Based on the data from the other two classrooms, it became clear that the social and discursive relationships themselves needed to actively promote counter-hegemonic practices for the Freirean/critical approach to be even remotely effective in relation to its stated objectives. Careful attention must be paid to the day-to-day talk, actions and interactions within Freirean-minded classrooms to foster critical student agency and consciousness. Analyses of the data also indicated that learners developed significant levels of "academic" critical student agency under both Daisy and Nadia. Beyond the potential methodological dissonance this might have personally and philosophically caused, instead, was always on the implementation of Freirean practice; specifically, the development of critical student agency, and not literacy development, per se. The focus on the specific discursive formation of critical student agency has raised both a challenge, and offered an example, to researchers working in the field of critical pedagogy.
