A critical pedagogy of place and the critical place(s) of pedagogy

The notion of place-based education as grounding student learning in the local raises important questions about what constitutes the ‘local’ in a now closely interconnected world and what constitutes an educational ‘place’ when places of learning are shifting, as both new virtual sites emerge and old physical ones, including schools, lose some of their significance. In response to Gruenewald’s proposal to blend place-based education with critical pedagogy as traditions whose respective emphasis complements the other’s limitations, I identify some tensions and remaining limitations but disagree with Bowers’ critique that a critical pedagogy of place is an oxymoron. Instead, I argue that these two traditions can be productively juxtaposed whereby their junctures and disjunctures can be revealed and used as a pedagogical space for authentic environmental and cultural learning by engaging students in constructing thick descriptions (as Bowers advocates) and critical analyses, both historically and contemporaneously, of the places they inhabit.