Our Mission
Student Pedagogies of Asian America was created out of the desire to provide an academic and creative platform for high school and college students to critically and creatively discuss progressive topics that impact family, community, as well as national and global matters. Most importantly, we believe that teens can impact visions and shape theories for a just world through critical pedagogies—that is, we can impact new ways of learning and reflecting. Paulo Freire discusses in his book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, that the process of learning must be a reciprocal, relational practice between student and teacher, young and experienced. The world of Asian American Studies has, however, largely been solely for adult scholars. Our journal seeks to insert young scholars' voices in this current void.
Our vision for knowledge production and content about Asian America is one of inclusivity and allyship/solidarity that does not limit Asian America or Asian American conversations to those who identify as Asian American. We want to ground this project on the idea that “Asian America” itself is less of a physical identity and more of a discursive community of diverse, various identities. In that regard, we think conversations on histories, cultures, politics, and identities can be more capacious than how they have been understood in the past.
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​We seek to foster the critical voices of students in education whereby students are agents of their own learning and use their whole selves to produce knowledge. Student pedagogy is a critical pedagogical tool that inserts itself as an important component of critical theory. Like feminist theory, critical student pedagogy starts with lived experiences of young people who see their agency as key to changing education. And like critical race theory, student pedagogy seeks to critique how ongoing systematic harms in the education system can hinder true liberation. Student pedagogy recognizes the importance of addressing the inequities of power, status, socioeconomics, education, and more.