Praxis is a programme of teaching, research and educational practice in Global Justice Education at University College Cork. Developed by Dr Gertrude Cotter, Lecturer at the School of Education and Academic Lead for Praxis, it brings together critical education, participatory research, student and staff engagement, educational resources and public initiatives concerned with justice, inequality and social change.
Praxis is grounded in the idea that education can help us not only to understand the world, but also to question it, imagine alternatives and participate in creating more just futures.
On this page
- What is Praxis?
- What Praxis Does
- What is Global Justice Education?
- The Praxis Approach
- Principles of Praxis
- People & Partnerships
- Praxis in Numbers
What is Praxis?
Praxis grew from a concern with the place of Development Education and Global Citizenship Education within higher education, and with the potential of universities to engage more critically with global and local injustice.
Since its beginnings, Praxis has developed into a broad programme of teaching, staff development, student engagement, participatory research, interdisciplinary collaboration and educational resource development across University College Cork.
The programme increasingly uses the term Global Justice Education (GJE). This reflects an emphasis on questions of power, inequality, rights, historical responsibility and transformation, while remaining connected to the traditions of Development Education, Global Citizenship Education and related fields.
Praxis is developed by Dr Gertrude Cotter, Lecturer at the School of Education, University College Cork, and Academic Lead for Praxis.
What Praxis Does
Praxis works across four closely connected areas.
Teaching & Learning
Praxis develops and delivers learning opportunities in Global Justice Education for students and university staff. These have included university-wide teaching, professional development, interdisciplinary learning and collaborative educational programmes.
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Research
Praxis undertakes participatory research into Global Justice Education, particularly within higher education. Research has explored student and staff experiences, interdisciplinary practice, institutional change and the role of education in responding to contemporary justice challenges.
Educational Resources
Praxis develops open educational materials to support educators who want to bring critical global justice perspectives into their teaching and professional practice.
Resources address themes including climate and environmental justice, colonialism, anti-racism, Palestine, global development and discipline-specific approaches to Global Justice Education.
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Student Praxis
Students have played a central role in Praxis through collaborative projects, research, events and public engagement. Projects encourage students to connect academic learning with questions they care about and with possibilities for action.
What is Global Justice Education?
Praxis uses the term Global Justice Education (GJE) to describe an educational approach that helps us understand and respond critically to the interconnected injustices shaping our world.
It asks not only what is happening?, but also why is it happening? Who benefits? Who is marginalised? Whose knowledge and experience are heard? How have histories of colonialism, racism, patriarchy, economic inequality and environmental exploitation shaped the present? And what possibilities exist for change?
Global Justice Education sits within a long and rich family of educational traditions. Praxis has previously used the term Global Citizenship and Development Education (GCDE), and much of its earlier research and teaching continues to be described in that way.
Rather than drawing rigid boundaries between fields, Praxis recognises the considerable overlap between Development Education, Global Citizenship Education, Global Education, Human Rights Education, Education for Sustainable Development, Peace Education, anti-racist education and other critical educational traditions.
The increasing use of Global Justice Education is deliberate. The language of justice foregrounds questions of power, structural inequality, rights, responsibility and transformation. It moves beyond approaches that ask learners simply to become better informed or more compassionate global citizens, towards education that also asks how injustice is produced, sustained, resisted and changed.
The Praxis Approach
Praxis connects critical reflection with action.
Its educational approach is participatory, dialogic and justice-oriented. Learning begins not simply with what is happening?, but with questions such as why is it happening, whose interests are served, whose knowledge is heard, and what possibilities exist for change?
Praxis draws particularly on critical pedagogy and traditions of participatory education. It values dialogue, experience, interdisciplinary learning and different forms of knowledge alongside academic scholarship.
Across teaching and research, the emphasis is on understanding the structural and historical dimensions of injustice while maintaining space for agency, creativity and hope.
Important elements of the Praxis approach include:
- praxis: reflection and action
- critical pedagogy
- participatory learning
- dialogue
- interdisciplinary learning
- experiential learning
- creative methods
- action-based learning
- participatory and community-based research approaches where appropriate
Principles of Praxis
Justice rather than charity
Global inequalities are approached through questions of rights, power and structural change rather than through ideas of benevolence or simply “helping” others.
Dialogue rather than prescription
Praxis creates spaces for questioning, discussion and disagreement rather than telling learners what they should think.
Critical reflection and action
Learning involves understanding the world critically while considering how individuals and communities can participate in changing it.
Participation and shared knowledge
Students, educators and community participants bring knowledge, experience and different perspectives into the learning process.
Interconnection
Social, economic, political and ecological justice are understood as deeply connected.
Radical Hope and possibility
Critical education should expose injustice without leaving learners with the sense that change is impossible.
Praxis does not regard methodology as politically neutral: how we teach and research is connected to the kinds of relationships, knowledge and world that education can help to create.
People & Partnerships
Praxis is developed by Dr Gertrude Cotter, Lecturer at the School of Education, University College Cork, and Academic Lead for Praxis.
Its work has involved students, academic and professional staff, community organisations, educators, researchers and partners in Ireland and internationally.
Collaboration is an important part of Praxis. Different projects have brought together people from across disciplines and beyond the university to develop research, educational resources, teaching initiatives, public events and collaborative programmes.
Praxis is supported by Irish Aid, the Government of Ireland’s international development programme.
Praxis in Numbers
Praxis has grown through teaching, research, staff engagement, student participation and interdisciplinary collaboration across University College Cork.
- X students
- X university staff
- X courses and programmes
- X research projects
- X educational resources
- X disciplines / Schools
- 4 UCC Colleges represented
Final figures will be added following review of Praxis reports and evaluation data.