In episode 202, Dan and Michael chat with Ryan Oto about his article published in Theory & Research in Social Education, “‘This is for us, not them’: Troubling adultism through a pedagogy of solidarity in youth organizing and activism.”

Transcript 

Books, Articles and Other Amazing Resources

1. Oto, R. (2023). “This is for us, not them”: Troubling adultism through a pedagogy of solidarity in youth organizing and activism. Theory & Research in Social Education, 51(4), 530-558.
2. Dan mentioned this book concerning ethical methods for facial recognition research and development: Buolamwini, J. (2023). Unmasking AI: My mission to protect what is human in a world of machines. Random House.
3. Brian Lozenski. (2021). Sparked: George Floyd, Racism, and the Progressive Illusion. Minnesota Historical Society. 
4. Gillen, J. (2019). The power in the room: Radical education through youth organizing and employment. Beacon Press. 
5. Gillen, J. (2014). Educating for insurgency: The roles of young people in schools of poverty. AK Press.
6. Gaztambide-Fernández, R., Brant, J., & Desai, C. (2022). Toward a pedagogy of solidarity. Curriculum Inquiry, 52(3), 251-265.
7. Love, B. L. (2019). We want to do more than survive: Abolitionist teaching and the pursuit of educational freedom. Beacon press.

Biography

Ryan Oto (he/him/his) is a visiting assistant professor of educational studies at Carleton College and next fall will be joining the University of Minnesota as an assistant professor of social studies education. His teaching experiences range across public and independent schools, where he taught social studies in grades 6-12. He received both his M.A. and Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction from the University of Minnesota, exploring the ways that teachers worked against anti-Black racism through anti-racist solidarities with Black and Brown youth.Grounded in over a decade of teaching experiences in schools, Ryan’s teaching and research interests center around schools as sites of democratic education. Guided by the philosophy that the purpose of research is to improve communities through a process of collective healing, Ryan’s scholarship and teaching center community to re-imagine the role of schools in cultivating democratic ideals. This has led him to engage an array of community-bound issues, including examining the political dynamics of anti-oppressive pedagogies in classrooms and communities, youth activism and organizing through youth participatory action research (YPAR), and theorizing the dynamics of race and racism in contemporary schooling. His research has been published in scholarly journals such as Race Ethnicity and Education, Theory & Research in Social Education, The Journal of Social Studies Research, and The Critical Social Educator. Along with his scholarly endeavors, Ryan maintains his commitments to practicing educators by leading professional developments on anti-oppressive teaching, community-based research practices, and restorative justice.