Transforming Our Bodies, Nations & Knowledges Through Action Researching The Educational Influences Of Our Cosmopolitan Pedagogies 

Jack Whitehead, Department of Education, University of Bath

Notes for a presentation to the Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association (ACRAWSA) on the 11^th December 2007 at the University of South Australia, City West Campus, Adelaide. Originally due to be presented as a joint paper with Yaakub Murray.

Yaakub Murray apologises for his absence. In the light of Yaakub's absence I have modified my presentation to focus on some possible contributions of my educational research programme for critical race and whiteness studies in an Australian context. I am thinking particularly of the contributions of generating living educational theories with a cosmopolitan pedagogy.

My understandings of a cosmopolitan pedagogy have developed through my experience and reflections of being present in the following communicative relationships with Yaakub.

In the following clip Yaakub is presenting our joint paper on 'White and Black with White Identities in self-studies of teacher-educator practices.' At the 2000 AERA Conference in New Orleans (Murray & Whitehead, 2000). As this was Yaakub's first presentation at an international conference it seemed appropriate for him to take the allocated 20 minutes to present our paper. In the clip he is focusing on the significance of values in our enquiries and as I watch the clip I recall the life-affirming energy in his expression and his willingness to account for himself in relation to values of humanity that for me distinguish a cosmopolitan pedagogy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwwtDdsAfp8

In the next clip there is a sudden explosion of laughter as we connect our discussion on racialising discourses between a white and a mixed-race educator to the co-incidence that Yaakub's black father was called Jack as is his white supervisor (me!). I associate the spontaneity of the laughter and flow of life-affirming energy with a healthy expression of well-being that helps to sustain a creative space for dialogue is a cosmopolitan pedagogy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3TjLxEiyPk

In the following clip, the student's video helps to emphasise our relational dynamic in space and boundaries. We are engaged in an educational enquiry into the meaning of a text on progressive Islam. Our boundaries are open to each others' enquiries. There is a flow of communication between us and again and in the laughter between us at the end of the clip I experience the pleasure of our engagement. In watching this clip I feel a mutually in the relationship that I distinguish in terms of our common humanity and in which I believe that we are sharing our expressions of our cosmopolitan pedagogies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ud-zPjvae8

In the next clip I am video-taping Yaakub addressing a conference on addiction in Bath in 2006. He is talking about the expression of legitimate anger and the importance of racialising discourses in the face of addictions to forms of thought that reproduce institutional racialism. I identify Yaakub's form of communication in terms of a cosmopolitan pedagogy as he is expressing the values of common humanity and clear understandings of legitimate anger in a way that is intended to influence the education of social formations away from institutional racism and into celebrating diversity and inclusionality. In this clip I identify Yaakub's unique expression of his cosmopolitan pedagogy with both Bernstein's (2000) idea of pedagogy and Said's (1994) idea of cosmopolitan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpLpca0BDSA

What I mean by a living educational theory is an explanation of an individual's educational influence in their own learning, in the learning of others and in the learning of the social formations in which they live and work. What I mean by a cosmopolitan pedagogy is a pedagogy that engages with critical race and whiteness studies in the generation and communication of educational knowledge that carries hope for the future of humanity. Part of this hope has already been expressed by the organizing group for the conference in their acknowledgement that we are meeting on the traditional country of the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains:

"We recognize and respect their cultural heritage, beliefs and relationshipo with the land. We acknowledge that they are or continuing importance to the Kaurna people living today" (ACRAWSA, 2007).

Sharon Gollan, Kathleen Stacey, Claire Ralfs, Lillian Holt (2007) and Odette Kelada (2007) have emphasized the importance of interrogating one's own whiteness as a white person. By whiteness I am meaning power relations that serve the interests of sustaining and enhancing the privileges and supremacy of white people.

The privileges I have received from being white and living in the UK are too numerous to list here. Perhaps the most significant for my economic well being and productive life is the privilege of a tenured contract of employment at the University of Bath from 1977. This privilege in turn was based on the privilege of access to free schooling and health service and free higher education for a first degree in science, a masters degree in the psychology of education and a doctorate in educational theory. So, for all my life I have benefited from the privileges of whiteness. One response I could have to this privilege is to analyse it in terms of Gloria Ladson-Billing's (2006) critical race theory as part of an 'Education Debt'.

"The achievement gap is one of the most talked-about issues in U.S. education. The term refers to the disparities in standardized test scores between Black and White, Latina/o and White, and recent immigrant and White students. This article argues that a focus on the gap is misplaced. Instead, we need to look at the 'education debt' that has accumulated over time. This debt comprises historical, economic, sociopolitical and moral components. The author draws an analogy with the concept of national debt – which she contrasts with that of a national budget deficit – to argue the significance of the education debt." (Ladson-Billings, 2006, p. 3)

I understand Ladson-Billing's analysis and can feel the motivating power of the idea of an 'education debt' for improving the educational opportunities and accomplishments of all students in overcoming disparities. However my own motivations are different. The emerged in response to my recognition at the age of 6 of what human beings were capable of doing to each other on grounds of difference. Being 63 I was born in the UK in the last year of the second world war, a war fueled by an explicit racist ideology of Aryan supremacy. Since this recognition the expression of my own life-affirming energy has fueled responses to a life of educational enquiry that I intend to be a contribution to enhancing hope for the future of humanity.

So, what I have I done in response to the recognition of my own white privilege and to crimes against humanity?

My initial response may initially sound unconnected with my question when I say that I have spent my working life in the Academy contributing to the reconstruction of educational theory. However, I see a close connection between the educational theories I use to give meaning and purpose to my life and my answer to the above question. I see the connection in relation to my expression of an educational responsibility to account for my own life in relation to answers to the above question in the generation of my own living educational theory. Through my tutoring and supervision of masters and doctoral programmes at the University of Bath I have been able to offer support to others who also wish to generate their own living educational theories. In this way I have sought to fulfill part of the mission of the University of Bath which is to have a distinct academic approach to the education of professional practitioners.

Let me show you what I have been doing with the living educational theories flowing through web-space. As I do this I am asking you to consider the possibility that a new epistemology has been created that can help to legitimate indigenous knowledges in the Academy. I am thinking of an epistemology in which living logics and new standards of judgment are clarified from the ground of our embodied knowledges; the embodied knowledges we are using in contributing to the transformation of our bodies and nations as we ask, research and answer questions of the kind, 'how do I improve what I am doing?'

I am also asking you to consider the possibility that a living theory approach to action research could support members of ACRAWSA in contributing to the transformation of knowledges in the Academy as well as our bodies and nations. I am thinking of an approach in which we share our stories of our educational influences in learning as we integrate our critical race and whiteness studies into our cosmopolitan pedagogies.

Here are some of the ways in which I think we could share our stories as living educational theories flowing through web-space.

Having access to the web-resources at http://www.actionresearch.net means that I can draw your attention to multi-media representations in doctoral theses and masters dissertations that have already legitimated new living standards of judgment in the Academy. For example, Charles' (2007) has legitimated his understandings of ubuntu ways of being, enquiring and knowing, guiltless recognition and societal reidentification in researching the transformation of bodies and knowledges.

The legitimation of Charle's expression of his embodied knowledge in the Academy carries hope for the transformation of knowledges, from those that sever the knower from the known and sustain the damaging power relations of institutionalised racism, to those that celebrate diversity and carry hope for the future of humanity. In the following clip Charles is explaining his learning about values that carry hope for humanity from working with women in Sierra Leone as he understood their loving responses to their children; children who had been born as a result of being raped by the soldiers who killed their husbands in the civil war.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcfZE_z-C_w

Charles' thesis integrates visual narratives for communicating the meanings of the expression of his embodied values and understandings. Access to the visual data on streamed servers is helping to transform our perceptions of our bodies with space and our understandings of how to bring embodied knowedge into the Academy as legitimate academic knowledge. While the influence of global communications through the internet needs further exploration in terms of explaining its transformatory power for nations, we may be able to feel and see transformations in our own perceptions as the visual media show us the nature of our interrelationships.

Following Murray (2007) I claim that a living educational theory approach to personal and social transformation provides a way of transforming our bodies and knowledges that might also bring transformatory possibility to nations, while holding as problematic the future of 'nation states' as a viable organizational form for political and social aspiration.

In contributing to these transformations I believe that the majority of us will experience some painful rejections and oppositions that carry the potential for scarification. By scarification I mean the experience of emotional abuse or lack of recognition that carries a pressure to close down creative dialogue. In response to this pressure I am suggesting that we work at sustaining our educational conversations. Through working in a creative space, paradoxically sustained with privileges of whiteness, I have been fortunate to be able to continue to sustain such conversations. These include evidence-based analyses that share generative responses for resisting such scarifications in the practice of cosmopolitan pedagogies and pedagogies of the unique (Farren, 2007) and in the generation of living educational theories (McNiff, 2007).

Margaret Farren is one of the world's most impressive exponents of e-learning. You can see some of Margaret's work at Dublin City University at http://webpages.dcu.ie/~farrenm/ including her doctorate How Can I Create A Pedagogy Of The Unique Through A Web Of Betweenness? :

"The 'web of betweenness' refers to how we learn in relation to one another and also how ICT can enable us to get closer to communicating the meanings of our embodied values. I see it as a way of expressing my understanding of education as 'power with', rather than 'power over', others. It is this 'power with' that I have tried to embrace as I attempt to create a learning environment in which I, and practitioner-researchers, can grow personally and professionally. A 'pedagogy of the unique' respects the unique constellation of values and standards of judgement that each practitioner-researcher contributes to a knowledge base of practice." (Farren, 2005, Abstract).

I draw insights and inspiration from her understandings of a pedagogy of the unique and the celtic spirituality that informs her web of betweenness.

Jean McNiff is a Professor of Educational Research who is supporting the generation of living theories through action research in South Africa, Iceland, China, the UK and elsewhere in the world. You can access some of this work at:

http://www.jeanmcniff.com/reports.html

The past two years have seen the culmination of over ten years of sustained enquiry by practitioner-researchers supervised by Jean, first for their masters degrees and then for their doctorates, at the University of Limerick. Supervisors of doctoral programmes will know how much passion and sustained commitment moves a doctoral research programme to a successful completion and what an accomplishment it is to see 5 doctorates graduating within a two year period.

Bernie Sullivan (2006) A Living Theory of a Practice of Social Justice: Realising the Right of Traveller Children to Educational Equality. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Limerick.

Máirín Glenn (2006) Working with collaborative projects: my living theory of a holistic educational practice Ph.D. Thesis, University of Limerick.

Caitriona McDonagh (2007) My living theory of  learning to teach for social justice: How do I enable primary school children with specific learning disability (dyslexia) and myself as their teacher to realise our learning potentials? Ph.D. Thesis, University of Limerick.

Mary Roche (2007) Towards a living theory of caring pedagogy: interrogating my practice to nurture a critical, emancipatory and just community of enquiry. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Limerick.

Margaret Cahill (2007) My Living Educational Theory of Inclusional Practice. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Limerick. (Available from http://www.jeanmcniff.com/reports.html

in January 2008).

Here is the Abstract from Margaret's thesis:

This thesis is the articulation of my living educational theory of inclusional practice, which evolved through undertaking research in the area of educational provision for marginalised  children. It is a narrative account in which I offer descriptions of and explanations for my practice, as I transform my educational contexts into a celebration of democratically-constituted inclusional practices.

The thesis demonstrates how my embodied values of justice, inclusion and equality compelled me to develop social and educational practices that included potentially marginalised children. My living educational theory of inclusional practice therefore contains within itself a living theory of social justice premised on the idea that all are equal participants in democratic public discourses. I explain how I have transformed these values into the living critical standards of judgement by which I wish my work to be evaluated.

My original contributions to knowledge are to do with how I demonstrate the development of inclusional practices that are grounded in the realisation of my values that honour the individual and enable them to become agents in the creation of an inclusive society. From the grounds of my evidence base, I claim to have developed an inclusional practice that has profound implications of the education of the teaching profession and other social formations. (Roche, 2007)

I am hopeful that these five living theory doctorates together with the resources at http://www.actionresearch.net will captivate your imaginations as to the possibilities of living educational theories contributing to the transformation of our bodies, knowledges and nations through the expression of our cosmopolitan pedagogies and pedagogies of the unique.

Another forum you might decide to use in sharing your stories is the Educational Journal of Living Theories (EJOLTS). The chair of the editorial board, Moira Laidlaw, a recipient of the 'Friend of |China' Award, has produced a living educational theory account (Laidlaw, 2007) for the first issue of the Journal and documented the development of China's Experimental Centre for Educational Action Research in Foreign Languages Teaching at Ningxia Teachers University ( see http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/moira.shtml ). The co-creation of their narratives of their educational journey's (Laidlaw & Fengjun, 2005) bring together values and understandings from a Hui (Muslim) province of China and a predominantly white western culture in a most creative partnership.

My final point is concerned with producing something as human beings. In responding to Irene Watson's (2007) keynote to the conference, I raised a question about the epistemological significance of her presentation that evoked a focus on commodification. So, in conclusion I want to share something from the earlier writings of Marx:

Suppose we had produced things as human beings: in his production each of us would have twice affirmed himself and the other.

In my production I would have objectified my individuality and its particularity, and in the course of the activity I would have enjoyed an individual life, in viewing the object I would have experienced the individual joy of knowing my personality as an objective, sensuously perceptible, and indubitable power.

In your satisfaction and your use of my product I would have had the direct and conscious satisfaction that my work satisfied a human need, that it objectified human nature, and that it created an object appropriate to the need of another human being.

I would have been the mediator between you and the species and you would have experienced me as a redintegration of your own nature and a necessary part of yourself; I would have been affirmed in your thought as well as your love.

In my individual life I would have directly created your life, in my individual activity I would have immediately confirmed and realized my true human nature. (Bernstein, 1971, p. 48).

|What I had in mind in my question to Irene Watson was the possibility that in the sharing of each others' living educational theory we are expressing our unique talents and offering our living theories as gifts, freely given, in the hope that they may be of some use to others in living their productive lives.

References

Bernstein, B. (2000) Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity: Theory, Research, Critique.

Bernstein, R. (1971) Praxis and Action. London; Duckworth.

Farren, M. (2007) How am I Creating a Pedagogy of the Unique through a Web of Betweenness with a New Epistemology for Educational Knowledge? Action Research Expeditions, December 2007. Retrieved 11 December 2007 from http://www.arexpeditions.montana.edu/docs/articles.php

Gollan, S. Stacey, K., Ralfs, C. & Hold, L. (2007) Working in Partnership. A panel discussion at the Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association Annual Conference, 10-12 December, Adelaide.

Kelada, O. (2007) Whiteness: A National Emergency. Presentation at the Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association Annual Conference, 10-12 December, Adelaide.

Ladson-Billings, G. (2006) 2006 Presidential Address. From the Achievement to the Education Debt: Understanding Achievement in U.S. Schools. Educational Researcher, Vol. 35, No. 7, pp. 3-12).

Laidlaw, M. & Fengjun, T. (2005) How can we enhance educational and English-Language provision at our Action Research Centre and beyond? Action Research Expeditions, June 2005. Retrieved 11 December 2007 from http://www.arexpeditions.montana.edu/articleviewer.php?AID=87

Laidlaw, M. (2007) In Pursuit Of Counterpoint. Paper submitted for publication in the first issue of the Educational Journal of Living Theories. See http://ejolts.net/drupal/node/26

McNiff, J. (2007) My Story Is My Living Educational Theory. In Clandinin, J. (Ed.) (2007) Handbook of Narrative Enquiry: Mapping a Methodology, Thousand Island, Dehli, London; Sage.

Murray, Y. P. (2007) Transforming Our Bodies, Nations & Knowledges Through Action Researching The Educational Influences Of Our Cosmopolitan Pedagogies. Draft paper with Whitehead, J. (unpublished).

Murray, P. & Whitehead J. (2000) White and Black with White Identities in self-studies of teacher-educator practices. Paper presented at AERA 2000, New Orleans. Retrieved 9 October 2007 from http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/A2/aerapj.htm

Said, E. W. (1994) Culture and Imperialism. London: Vintage.

Watson, I. (2007) Humanitarian Intervention, What Is Saved. Keynote to the 2007 Conference of the Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association, 10^th September 2007.

Whitehead, J. & McNiff, J. (2006) Action Research Living Theory. London; Sage.