The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 3 - 62

Stephanie D. Sears * Dawn Lee Tu

A central goal of the critical
reflection exercises within EMDS
is to question the assumptions
associated with social identities and
encourage students to engage the
contradictions and dissonance of
sitting in spaces of both privilege
and oppression.

self-awareness has become more nuanced as
their awareness of others expands in discussions about individuals impacted by inequity.
Rosenberger (2000) notes that critical consciousness must include the willingness to
face the personal contradictions that result
from understanding one's privilege. A central
goal of the critical reflection exercises within
EMDS is to question the assumptions associated with social identities and encourage
students to engage the contradictions and dissonance of sitting in spaces of both privilege
and oppression.
The third element of critical reflection is an
ability to conduct structural analyses of social
issues. Cipolle (2010) explains how this perspective demonstrates "a shift from individual
causes of oppression and inequality to adopting an institutional and systemic view of the
causes of injustice" (p. 7). Forty-seven percent
of the reflection papers contained clear instances of structural analyses of social issues. Many
students like Isabella shared connections they
began to make between their lived experiences and cases of injustice. She recalled stories
62

that her mother told her and connected them
to issues discussed in class, " . . . the lessons
learned in our hip-hop class (were) life-changing for me. Suddenly I could fully recognize a
complete social injustice in a system. Planned
shrinkage and gentrification were words that
meant nothing to me before this class, but that
now mean a trigger for social change." Like
Isabella, Lucia, a Latina, also began to make
connections:
Understanding the history of hip-hop has
helped me see how different social issues
affected the development of that culture.
For example, the idea that the media uses
controlling images to dictate what people
should be like blew my mind! Making
the connection between larger social
structures and how they do not really benefit
marginalized people truly gets me fired up.
Students articulated a structural view of inequality as well as the ways they are impacted
by such structures. The shift from an individual to a structural level of analysis is at the
center of a developing critical consciousness
and key for engaging in critical action.

CRITICAL ACTION
Critical action refers to the ability to "take
action against oppressive forces in society"
(Freire 2000, p. 35). Throughout the EMDS
program, students engaged with and learned
from activists who were working directly with
communities to create social change. By the
end of the year, students experienced working
on campaigns to resist gentrification, disrupting the school to prison pipeline, and more. In
addition, students created on-campus projects
that explored issues such as racism, gender
inequality, food insecurity, police brutality, the
murder of trans* people, Islamophobia, etc.

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The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 3

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