Faculty of Education, Graduate Studies

Davey, a Toronto Board of Education teacher (Ontario, Canada), makes observations of a classroom research project based on the teaching of Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold. This paper considers whether the novel has the potential to be a site of historical memory or “zakhor” within the urban classroom.

Death is an inevitable part of the human condition, common to us all, yet when people are touched by death their lived experiences of grief and loss are inherently singular and varied. Jacques Derrida (2000), Judith Butler (2003) and Michalinos Zembylas (2009) contemplate experiences of mourning and, if linked, their different perspectives have the potential to enlighten our consideration of this complex human experience. Looking specifically at the experience of mourning for the loss of another, and how that experience moves one outside the realm of the self to feelings for the Other, this paper considers the risk of teaching about the experience of grief to students of an age when personal identity is still at such a formative stage. A student may need more time to encounter the self before making such a pedagogical leap. If the process of mourning, as a starting point, involves too much complexity of emotion for both student and teacher to encounter together, I ask how the pedagogical process might be strengthened if we were to start, instead, with an introduction, a pointing towards a sensibility and disposition of compassion?

Underscored by personal experiences of teaching on the “inside,” this essay considers the fallout for incarcerated youth when pedantic classroom realities take precedence over more philosophical and “educational” learning goals. As one who spent years teaching youth in detention, I wonder at my own practice and what might have come from asking questions such as “What is education for?” What if I had known “to recover education as a question of becoming…of tending to the past and taking care of “the new” that emerges in the world?” (Di Paolantonio, 2014). Twenty years later, I have since acquired the language to ask more explicitly what it might mean to think of education as something apart from simply gaining qualification and socialization. Inspired by educational philosopher Gert Biesta and his written “conversations” with philosophers Emmanuel Levinas, Hannah Arendt and Philippe Meirieu, I wonder at what role education plays in what it means to be human or in striving to be human. Based on ideas that grew out of my research on York Detention Centre’s closure, this paper posits the philosophical question “What is ‘educational’ in education?” I utilize a carefully defined vocabulary set, specifically the terms “becoming,” missed, to have “passed time” and the “educational,” to unpack what is – or has the potential to be – “educational” within (and beyond) the confines lived out by incarcerated youth. Only when we engage with such questions can the pervasive silence that dominates Canadian educational scholarship on such a topic be disrupted. 

Publication date: Aug 10, 2017  in Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies (Taylor and Francis) Issue 4, Volume 39: A philosophical consideration of the "educational" in the schooling of youth in detention.

This paper puts forward a pedagogical model of care for K-12 educators that is specifically focused on alternative classroom educators. In conversation with educational theorists and psychologists, a model of care that is translatable to both teachers and students in non-traditional classrooms is presented. Looking first at Arlie Hochschild’s “emotion work” in the context of alternative classroom teaching, a link is made to Nel Noddings’s “ethics of care” as a pedagogical starting point. The author then riffs on psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott’s notion of the “good enough mother,” the one who “manages a difficult task: initiating the infant into a world in which he or she will feel both cared for and ready to deal with life’s endless frustrations” (Alpert). Connecting Alpert’s mobilizing of Winnicott to aspects of Noddings’s “caring relation” builds a theoretical bridge that supports and scaffolds the construction of what the author calls the “good enough teacher.” The author also sugg...

This paper puts forward a pedagogical model of care for K-12 educators that is specifically focused on alternative classroom educators. In conversation with educational theorists and psychologists, a model of care that is translatable to both teachers and students in non-traditional classrooms is presented. Looking first at Arlie Hochschild’s “emotion work” in the context of alternative classroom teaching, a link is made to Nel Noddings’s “ethics of care” as a pedagogical starting point. The author then riffs on psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott’s notion of the “good enough mother,” the one who “manages a difficult task: initiating the infant into a world in which he or she will feel both cared for and ready to deal with life’s endless frustrations” (Alpert). Connecting Alpert’s mobilizing of Winnicott to aspects of Noddings’s “caring relation” builds a theoretical bridge that supports and scaffolds the construction of what the author calls the “good enough teacher.” The author also sugg...

Two action research projects of the Community-Based Master of Education program at the University of Regina are featured with particular attention given to a developmental progression that takes place through a series of action research cycles, involving a significant shift from a classroom-based to a community-based teaching practice. In taking an Indigenous perspective on community-based education, this study draws upon Jo-Ann Archibald's (Q'um Q'um Xiiem) (2008) Indigenous Storywork: Educating the Heart, Mind, Body, and Spirit. As an Indigenous approach to life and learning, Archibald's work offers an insightful perspective on communitybased education that is of value to educators with an interest in community development and its potential for schools. In closing, the prospect of educational action research as part of a community-based teaching practice is considered.

The Four Directions of the Indigenous Medicine Wheel are drawn upon in an inquiry of colonialism and its implications for educative and academic practice. In this endeavour, Gayatri Spivak's writings offer an account of the influence of colonial history upon the educative practice of the academy in its relationship, for example, with Indigenous peoples and communities.

As a perspective on education for sustainable development at universities, the purpose of this Chapter is to explore a reconceptualization of education for sustainable development through Stephen Sterling’s conceptions of education as an agent of change, and alternatively, as a subject of change. This study is a personal point of view that is speculative and limited to sustainability programs and curricula at Canadian universities with implications for the role of education for sustainable development within the realm of the prospective contribution of the social sciences to the study and practice of sustainability.

The theory and practice of communicative space is explored through three select action research studies from a past edition of Action Research, that focus on the practice of ''opening communicative space'' in action research. In an examination of these studies, a story is told of how the emancipatory interests of the marginalized (i.e. African-American students in public schools, the Aged in healthcare, and the Roma people of northeastern Hungary) can be realized through the opening and emergence of communicative spaces throughout the action research process. This story is told through successive themes that include the expectations and interests of action researchers, the challenges that they encountered once the action research process was underway, and finally, their reflective observations upon new communicative spaces that had emerged. While theoretical perspectives on communicative space are considered, such as the social theory of Jürgen Habermas, this article looks especially to the practical framework of William Isaacs on ''Fields of Conversation'' to understand how the opening of communicative spaces contributes to the emancipatory interests of action research.

Abstract
The question is raised about the nature of transformative change with respect to sustainability in higher education. In particular, should this change be reserved for senior administration? Or alternatively, should faculty and staff as the “institutionalmiddle” of higher education be considered as best suited to lead sustainability on campus, and further, in partnership with stakeholders and others with interests in advancing sustainability within wider society? In this respect, Regional Centres of Expertise (RCEs), established by the United Nations’ University (UNU) are considered as a way toward transformational change in higher education by bridging the gap between higher education and multiple stakeholders with interests in sustainability. Complexity theory, and particularly the notion of complex adaptive systems (CAS), is applied toward an understanding of RCEs as a venue for sustainability leadership in higher education.
Key Words: Complexity theory; complex adaptive system; Regional Centres of Expertise (RCEs); sustainability education; sustainability leadership; transformative change

As a central part of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) from 2005 to 2014 Regional Centres of Expertise (RCE) serve as agents of education for sustainable development through multistakeholder networks with an interest in the advancement of sustainable societies. In this article, the question is raised about the nature of 'expertise' found among RCE programmes directed towards the development of local green economies; and further, the implications of expertise with respect to the practice among RCEs of education for sustainable development worldwide. Regional Centres of Expertise have put into practice a range of approaches to ESD, some based on a knowledge-transfer approach to learning, which positions post-secondary education as well as other authoritative technical and research institutions as the principal overseers of knowledge and expertise; however, social learning through the facilitation, or convening, of dialogue has also been adopted as an approach to learning that is inclusive of civil society and marginalized others, with implications for social and environmental justice.

The role of adult education is considered within the post-secondary context. In this paper, sustainability education, and particularly, the recent emergence globally of the United Nations University's Regional Centres of Expertise (RCEs) provides an example of how adult education may continue to serve in the 21st century, an era that has already proven itself in peril with issues of social and environmental justice-spanning wide ranging challenges of gender, race, and ecology. Le rôle de l'éducation des adultes est étudié dans le contexte postsecondaire. Dans cet article, l'éducation au développement durable et notamment l'émergence récente sur l'échelle mondiale des Centres régionaux d'expertise de l'Université des Nations Unies, offre un exemple de la mesure dans laquelle l'éducation des adultes peut continuer à être utile au 21e siècle, époque qui s'est déjà avérée aux prises avec des problèmes de justice sociale et environnementale qui couvrent un vaste éventail de défis liés au genre, à la race et à l'écologie.

Social presence in online learning, particularly through graduate programs in adult education, is considered through the use of “small story” (Georgakopoulou, 2015) and Bhabha’s (1994) thirdspace. Attention is given to the theoretical development and history of social presence research, including social presence within the framework of online communities of inquiry (Garrison, 2009) as a model of online learning. Storied presence, as small story applied to social presence, is explored within this framework with the intention to use small story as a way to help graduate students come to terms with challenges experienced, for example, through differences in culture, race, and gender. In this sense, storied presence may serve as a form of experiential learning that draws upon lesser known aspects of adult education with attention, for instance, to emotions, relationships,and spirituality in learning, as well as a sense of belonging among graduate students. Prospective research will include an inquiry into the effects of emotion-laden experiences upon the self (Dirkx, 2018), and potentially the Buddhist notion of non-self or “anatta” in adult learning. Further research will also explore the presentation ofself in online learning environments through reflective practice (Bolton, 2014) with consideration of theatrical masks as metaphor (Ross, 2011), including masks of protection, disguise, performance, discipline, trace, and transformation.Keywords: Social presence, community of inquiry, thirdspace, small story, sense of belonging, emotions in adult learning.

Three decades ago Julius Nyerere (1990) wrote Challenge to the South. In response to the legacy of colonialism, Nyerere challenged the nations of the Global South to advance their development and to free their people. These concerns are as relevant today as they were in the 1990s. Established for the United Nations Decade of Education Sustainable Development in 2005, there are now over 175 Regional Centres of Expertise (RCEs) on Education for sustainable Development (ESD). This paper offers a case study of RCEs worldwide with a particular focus on challenges, and responses, including a focus on the select Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of poverty and health. Further, an account is given of RCEs which have attended to the recognition of Indigenous and traditional ways of knowing.