EMANCIPATORY PEDAGOGY WEBSITE
Advancing Emancipatory Pedagogy: A Transdisciplinary, Conceptual Educational Framework for Healing and Liberation
Doctoral Dissertation from California Institute for Integral Studies
September, 2026
Dissertation Abstract
This inquiry addresses the systemic inequities and injustices in the public educational paradigm that disadvantage students of color and compromise their social and academic achievement. This research explores contemporary educational literature through the theoretical lens of Paolo Freire’s critical pedagogy. Critical pedagogy focuses on cultivating critical consciousness about inequality and actively participating in transformative and inclusive democratic processes to effect change. Critical pedagogy holds that individuals can transcend their conditions and transform the world into a better place. A critical pedagogy lens is informed by concepts of identity development, social construction, and global citizenship.
This paper proposes a new transdisciplinary and emancipatory conceptual educational framework as a solution. Transdisciplinarity promises to expose us to new ways of thinking, help us frame the question more accurately, and reveal aspects of the solution that might otherwise be obscured (Montuori 2013b). This research aims to distinguish a pedagogical approach meant to benefit African-American students and other students of color by increasing attendance, motivation, and self-esteem, resulting in improved academic achievement. This dissertation will yield a series of papers, essays, books, and other texts that explore theoretical components related to the macro-term of emancipatory pedagogy. For this study, the term is codified as a mega-concept that includes several social justice principles and pedagogical concepts, including culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy, arts education, social-emotional learning, ecological literacy, and multiculturalism.
Keywords: arts, collaboration, communication, creative inquiry, culturally and linguistically responsive, ecological literacy, education, emancipatory, equity, growth mindset, identity, integration, mindfulness, multicultural, multiliteracy, self-awareness, social-emotional, social construction, transdisciplinarity, transformative.
Dr. Charles Chip Mc Neal, M.Ed., Ph.D. 