Contradictions abound in education. Teaching involves both intentional and unintentional lessons, and it is often in the unintentional, hidden lessons that racism, sexism, and other “isms” find life. Learning includes both a desire for and a resistance to knowledge and it is often our resistance to uncomfortable ideas that keeps our eyes closed to the “isms.”

Common sense does not often tell us that oppression plays out in our schools. But the contradictions in education make it difficult to say that oppression is not in some way affecting what and how is taught, despite the best of intentions.

What might it mean, then, to teach in ways that challenge oppression?

The term “anti-oppressive education” is a very extensive one that encompasses approaches to education that actively challenge different forms of oppression.

“Oppression” refers to a social dynamic in which certain ways of being in this world–including specific ways of identifying or being identified–are normalized or privileged while other ways are disadvantaged or marginalized. Forms of oppression include racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, anti-Semitism, ablism, colonialism, and other “isms.” Anti-oppressive education aims to challenge multiple forms of oppression.

There are many methodologies to anti-oppressive education, some that contradict or critique others. This is not a surprise. For decades, educators and researchers have proposed a range of theories of oppression and practices to challenge it, and these theories and practices all have their own strengths and weaknesses. The field of anti-oppressive education is based on these traditions, crafting links between feminist, critical, multicultural, queer, postcolonial, and other movements toward social justice. As it moves forward, the field of anti-oppressive education continually problematizes its own perspectives and practices by looking for new insights, recognizing that any approach to education–even its own–can make certain changes possible but others impossible.