The Use of Critical Pedagogy in Social Science Education: An Analysis of Cartoons on Teaching and Learning Outcomes in the Bamenda Municipality

Abstract

Social science teachers use a wide variety of innovative pedagogy to support students' cognitive, affective and psychomotor development. This explains the shift from Socratic pedagogy to the use of cartoon-critical pedagogy in social science education. Cartoons are used for explanation of difficult content in textbooks hence, motivating students to learn. Unfortunately, this innovative pedagogy is ineffectively utilized by some social science teachers in their classroom. Therefore, this paper analyses the use of cartoons in social science lessons as a critical pedagogy to enhance teaching and students' learning outcomes. Constructivist learning theory and dual coding theory are used in the study which focused on 03 public grammar secondary schools in the Bamenda Municipality. A sample of 07 pedagogic inspectors, 375 students and 36 social science teachers were selected using convenient and simple random sampling techniques. Data for the study was collected using questionnaires and focus group discussions. The data was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The results reveal that, teachers' use of cartoons in social science classes as a teaching device positively promoted cooperative learning, problem based learning, transformative learning and critical thinking amongst students. Furthermore, teachers' use of cartoons in social science classes as a learning device positively improved students' ability to understand, apply, analyse, evaluate and synthesize economics, geography and history concepts. The study concludes that, cartoon-critical pedagogy motivated teachers to become transformative intellectuals and students to become critically and socially conscious.