Show me what community looks like! : designing a popular education curriculum for a Los Angeles-based CLT

Abstract

This thesis project is a reflection on how popular education can empower individuals and foster community control. It is based on my experience co-creating a curriculum with a South Los Angeles community land trust. This project incorporates elements of popular education, critical pedagogy, alternative models of housing tenure, and participatory knowledge creation, both in the content and the process of designing the curriculum. I begin the thesis with overview of theoretical frameworks for popular education, which provides a basis for mutual learning among the program participants. I then explore ways in which residents build community to provide a foundation for establishing control. This thesis consists of the curriculum and a brief guideline to it. The curriculum centers democratic housing in South LA and explores radical alternative housing, economic democracy, land use and rights, and the legacy of US housing discrimination. It aims to empower residents to establish community control in their transition from being renters to becoming joint owners and representatives of a community. The lessons use elements of participatory action research to redefine knowledge and its production, adapted to reverberate in South Los Angeles. Some lessons build from successfully implemented interactive learning activities, tailored to the South Los Angeles experience, while others are an opportunity to share information. Others borrow from community organizing and require students to take on the role of the community educator. This thesis incorporates lessons learned from the design process, by utilizing different theoretical elements of popular education as a baseline to create the themes for each lesson.