Anti-Oppressive Pedagogy (AOP) is an approach to teaching and learning that organizes efforts in the direction of institutional and social change, which requires continuous critical self-reflection, lifetime learning, and progressive betterment (or the Jesuit value of Magis). Through specific and intentional strategies in- and outside the classroom, AOP seeks to acknowledge and confront the fundamentally racist, colonial, homophobic, gendered, ableist, and transphobic underpinnings of our society and educational systems. AOP is a series of frameworks and processes, grounded in an intersectional approach (an approach rooted in the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, sexuality, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination, disadvantage, or privilege), and operates on the understanding that the societal underpinnings of oppression are systems entrenched in the very structures of our institutions, including our places of higher learning. 

At FCIP, we have oriented towards using the term Anti-Oppressive Pedagogy (AOP), instead of only “anti-racist pedagogy” (ARP), as a means of both expanding and clarifying our intentions to attend to the many oppressive systems that exist in our institutions and societies. AOP functions as an umbrella that includes other justice-oriented organizing efforts such as anti-racist pedagogy (ARP), anti-ableist pedagogy (AAP), queer pedagogy (QP), feminist pedagogies (FP), anti-colonial pedagogy, environmental justice pedagogies (EJP) and decolonized pedagogy (DCP). In housing multiple justice-oriented pedagogies under the umbrella of AOP, we are better able to support the targeted ways that Loyola University Chicago attends to its institutional and communal commitments toward creating educational and pedagogical spaces that are more equitable, just, and anti-oppressive.  

AOP is aligned with our Jesuit values: we already recognize God and goodness in all people and all things; we are committed to standing with and for people on the margins of society; we seek out and celebrate our differences and shared humanity, and holistically honor our intersectional identities; we practice agere contra and “go against” those practices of tradition that would disallow our growth and  prevent our aspirations toward equity; and we endeavor to act in the direction of justice and the common good. 

Anti-Oppressive Pedagogy acknowledges an intentional advocacy for a better tomorrow by personally, professionally, and socially embracing and practicing these key principles that represent humanity at its best: compassion, empathy, forgiveness, integrity, kindness, respect, and self-reflection. 

These principles nod toward a faith in humanity. These values connect with individuals across cultures and communities and reframe conversations and thinking about an organization’s culture and its commitment to advancing diversity, inclusion, and belonging.

List of Anti-Oppressive Pedagogies:

• Anti-Racist Pedagogy
• Critical Disability (Dis-Crit)/Accessibility/Anti-ableist Pedagogy
• Decolonial/Anti-colonial Pedagogy
• Environmental Justice pedagogy
• Feminist Pedagogy
• Queer Pedagogy