Abstract

Using arts-based storytelling as a method of English language education, this article focuses on the intersection between arts, social movements, and public pedagogy, where students operate both as critical witnesses and respondents to knowledge production. It explores the question of how arts-based education can become a tool for creative resistance by centering learners’ voices and creative practices, a form of public pedagogy that challenges dominant narratives and promotes social justice. Through visual storytelling, bilingual translation, and community dialogue, students in an English language education project in rural Uttarakhand, India, became cultural agents, reclaiming everyday materials, rituals, and vernacular knowledge as pedagogical tools and challenging deficit-based narratives that marginalize rural lifeways. Rather than replicating standardized models of instruction, the project positioned curriculum as a living, co-constructed process rooted in relational learning and cultural specificity. It highlights how arts-based methods can activate public pedagogy in rural contexts, where formal schooling often overlooks embodied knowledge and community-defined relevance. For educators, the study offers a framework for ethical engagement, interdisciplinary inquiry, and justice-oriented practice, affirming that when learners are empowered to narrate their own worlds, education becomes a site of resistance, care, and transformation.

Keywords: Participatory Art Pedagogy, Place-Based Critical Art Education, Critical Consciousness, Linguistic Imperialism, Dialogical Learning, Vernacular Knowledge

How to Cite:

Singh, A., (2026) “Reclaiming vernacular: Public pedagogy and arts-based English language education”, Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education 42(2), 95-112. doi: https://doi.org/10.2458/jcrae.7746