Chapter 6: Community Schooling in Honduras: A Simulated Dialogue With Freire, Dewey, and Pinar

This chapter reports on a three-year study that examined a Honduran school as an international field placement site for promoting U.S. American preservice teachers’ cross-cultural understanding of place-based grassroots community schooling. Dewey’s vision for democratic education and learning-bydoing, Freire’s theory of critical consciousness and community action, and Pinar’s notion of place-based learning and understanding curriculum presented a critical cross-cultural lens for exploring the opportunities and challenges of a place-based grassroots community school in Honduras. Participants comprised the founding director of the school, two teachers, and four members of the community. Data consisted of recorded observations and interactions, interviews, informal conversations, and off-site activities. Findings evidence that cross-cultural place-based learning and grassroots community schooling offer U.S. American preservice teachers opportunities for acquiring diverse knowledges and critical skills, understanding their own location within the community and the world, and heightened awareness of the social and economic realities that impact education with potential for informed actions aimed at supporting social justice in schools and community.