Darryl Leroux.   3360                                                                                         Harry Reddin                

Reflection # 5 

Snakes and Ladders-A Performed Ethnography           

            Snakes and Ladders is a “performed ethnography” based on data from an empirical study on anti-homophobia education that tells the story of what happens when high school teachers and students in a fictional Canadian high school attempt to put on a Pride Day at their school.  Critical pedagogy defined is the relationships between teaching and learning and is a continuous process of unlearning, learning, relearning, reflection, evaluation, and the impact that these actions have on the students, in particular students whom have been historically and continue to be disenfranchised by what they call "traditional schooling."  Tara Goldstein’s work fits this bill exactly and is an ideal example of critical pedagogy at work.  



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            During our own class discussion we proved the effectiveness of this tool when given the choice of how to go about discussing Goldstein.   The unanimous decision was to perform the ethnography itself.   This shows the preference again for different methods than the traditional lecture style approach and an effective way of learning the material for those students who had a hard time with the readings.  Participation was also a great benefit as it pushed the reluctant to become involved and take notice of the script and show the effects of critical pedagogy at work.  This performance was the canvass where the participants laid down the initial foundations and began to get the sociological imagination ball rolling.  Although our class performed the ethnography at short notice with no official training, we were successful for the most part and I believe there were a few closet actors in the classroom.        

The research from which the play script is created is the first ethnographic resource that is the foundation of the performance and the underpinning of Goldstein’s work. The bulk of this information is specific to data from an empirical study on anti-homophobia education that she undertook in four Toronto schools from 2002 to 2003. Goldstein is effective in including a wide base of gender and ethnic origins and is successful in causing the audience to open their eyes to the broad spectrum that makes up an average Canadian school system today. This information resonates with our class and gives incentive to become more involved due to the similar age of participants of the study and the commonalities between the students portrayed in the performance and the students enrolled in Sociology 3306. This research is the first step in the process of the learning phase of the critical pedagogy and the catalyst behind the script that is intended to create the dynamic learning environment.

            What the most important aspect of the performed ethnography was not the theatrical work itself but the end discussion and the conversations that took place after the reading or performance.  In these follow-up conversations, research participants and other readers or audience have been subject to different views and now may be attempting to neutralize the cognitive dissonance caused from the production, which is exactly what Goldstein intended to happen.   The incorporation of audience input into on-going revisions of the play provides an opportunity for mutual analysis, and creates a dynamic between the researcher, participants and community itself.  These personal reflections cause the reader to re-evaluate their view of the subject, and it is this step during the ethnography that makes the entire process a success.  

            In conclusion, representing both contradictory and shifting positions in the performed ethnography, Goldstein is able to provoke a shifting of positions to anti-homophobia education among the readers or in other words initiate the aforementioned learning processes that are the basis for this process.  Goldstein is effective in illustrating both trains of thought from the educator’s perspective, protecting their students from homophobic violence yet holding on to their own homophobic beliefs.  This design forces the reader or audience to place them-selves in the educator’s position and reflect on this conflict and by doing so re-enforces Goldstein’s effectiveness and triumphant use of critical pedagogy at work.