Teaching Communication Activism: Communication Education for Social Justice

In Teaching Communication Activism: Communication Education for Social Justice, Frey, Palmer, and the volume's contributing authors work together to introduce and illustrate communication activism pedagogy (CAP) in theory and application.CAP, as Frey and Palmer (2014) describe, "teaches students studying communication how to use their communication knowledge and capabilities to promote social justice" and this volume provides "exemplars of how communication educators have accomplished that goal in practice" (p.2).Organized around four categories, the chapters cover theoretical explorations of CAP, CAP courses, social justice activism service-learning, and CAP as extended to other populations and sites beyond the traditional college classroom.The book begins with a foreword by Peter McLaren, one of the leading scholars in critical pedagogy and, more broadly, social justice education (e.g., see McLaren, 1998; McLaren & Kincheloe, 2007).McLaren ends his foreword by noting that CAP illustrates how critical pedagogy involves all disciplines.Indeed, this co-edited text demonstrates critical pedagogy in communication teaching and learning, but it also pushes critical pedagogy in an important way.CAP urges educators to move beyond raising students' awareness about injustice and toward teaching them how to intervene and take action.The first three chapters weave the underpinnings of CAP and support a critical reading of the text's subsequent articles.Providing historical, theoretical, philosophical, and ethical considerations, these chapters frame CAP as a pedagogical commitment to cultivating students' communication skills through facilitated learning that explores, questions, and intervenes in local and global contexts to promote social justice.CAP disrupts dominant discourses and common practices in communication education that prepare students to be market ready for the corporate world by teaching students to use communication theories, methods, and practices to intervene in unjust situations and work toward social change.Frey and Palmer's contributors discuss issues such as gender and violence (Chapter 6), activist performance (Chapters 7, 14, 15), and environmental advocacy (Chapter 8).To tackle these and other important issues, the authors work with diverse communities, ranging from migrant workers (Chapter 10), to middle and high school students (Chapters 11, 13), prisoners (Chapter 14), and indigenous communities in Guatemala (Chapter 15).These descriptions are not exhaustive.All authors employ simple yet powerful prose.Many chapters include quotations from students and community partners to illustrate each teaching example.The chapters on CAP courses provide sample syllabi, including reading lists and evaluation procedures.Each contributor provides insight on course design and inspiration, and openly discusses challenges and ways to improve such teaching.The work is accessible not only in terms of its con-Reviews • Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol 41 (2)

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