ABSTRACT
Critical pedagogy encourages a conscious educational synthesis with the individual and group experience in regard to place, action, or involvement. A critical pedagogy analysis emphasizes intersectional aspects of social experience, drawing from its lessons learned and actions. The reflective, self-ethnographic, and participatory critical observation of group dynamics and one’s own work is part of a long tradition of feminist and participatory action research and represents the ideology, theory, and practice of critical and feminist pedagogy. Name introductions can empower marginalized sub-groups or individuals in the course group to share something unique about themselves or their culture, and to have voice and space right at the beginning of a course. The sharing of name stories in a group can also serve to emphasize the shared humanity of participants coming from conflicting sides in mediation processes and dialogue encounters. Names also represent power, control, and future success based on gender.
