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FROM TEACHER CRITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS TO RESEARCH TRANSFORMATION: THE SPIRAL AND SANKOFA

ASHLEY GIBSON

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PUBLISHED IN:

 Volume 2, Issue 4, December  2025

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DOI:

https://doi.org/10.70144/ag020405me

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ABSTRACT:

This paper explores how teachers’ critical consciousness can transform the research process for high school students by intentionally integrating culturally grounded frameworks. Using a phenomenological narrative approach, I reflect on my experience teaching The College Board’s AP Research course during the 2024-25 school year. Central to this work is the Developmental Spiral of Critical Consciousness (DSCC) (Gibson, 2021), a framework developed to support teacher self-inquiry and liberatory pedagogical practices. Guided by this framework, I introduced my student to Sankofa, a Ghanaian principle meaning “to go back and retrieve it, as a lens for understanding reflexivity in academic research. Student reflections demonstrate how Sankofa became a powerful tool for reclaiming personal narrative, strengthening inquiry, and fostering authentic engagement. In the spirit of bell hooks, this work aims to serve as a “model of possibility” (hooks, 1994, p. 2) for educators committed to equity, imagination, and transformational learning. Through DSCC-informed pedagogical practices that explicitly taught reflexivity as an iterative, culturally grounded research skill, this study demonstrates how teacher critical consciousness reshaped students’ approaches to topic development, methodological decision-making, and revision within the research process.