CREATING AMD TESTING INCLUSIONAL AND POSTCOLONIAL LIVING
EDUCATIONAL THEORIES
Overview
The seminar is an exercise in social validity. Its aim is to
test the validity of shared understandings of inclusional meanings of new
living standards of critical judgement in the educational theories of
practitioner-researchers. Each contributor will present their research into
their own educational influence. That is, their educational influence in their
own learning, the learning of others and in the education of the social
formations in which they are living and working. They are researching from
within an inclusional perspective and will make transparent the assumptions in
this perspective. Inclusionality is a newly emerging awareness of the
evolutionary relationship between physical space and boundaries. Each
contributor will address the ontological, epistemological and methodological
significances of inclusionality for their educational enquiries. They will do
this in terms of the development of their contexualised explanations of
educational influences in their living theories of learning and self-identity
in their professional practices.
The new living standards of critical judgement for testing
the validity of educational theories will include: the postcolonial critical
pedagogy of a mixed-race diversity officer in a British Higher Education
Institution; a pedagogy of the unique and web of betweenness of an Irish
University Educator; the passion for compassion of a practitioner-researcher in
an Institute for Mental Health; the pedagogisation of a living theory
curriculum for the healing nurse in a Japanese University; the educational
influence in their own learning of undergraduate students and lecturer in a
life, environment and people curriculum in a British University; a flow of
life-affirming energy in educational relationships in ChinaÕs Experimental
Centre for Educational Action Research in Foreign Languages Teaching.
The seminar builds on previous symposia at AERA and BERA on:
AERA 04:
The transformative potential
of individualsÕ collaborative self-studies for sustainable global educational
networks of communication.
BERA 04:
a) Have we created a new
epistemology for the new scholarship of educational enquiry through practitioner research: Developing
sustainable global educational networks of communication.
b) How are we contributing to a new scholarship of
educational enquiry through our pedagogisation of postcolonial living
educational theories in the Academy?
and the
research programmes in 17 living educational theory doctorates at http://www.actionresearch.net/living.shtml
. The seminar marks a
transformatory advance in understanding the nature of the living critical
standards of judgement that can be used to test the validity of claims to
educational knowledge made from within a living theory perspective.
The ontological significance of the seminar is that the
practitioner-researchers will be showing how their accounts of their enquiry-learning
include the embodied values they use to give their lives meaning and purpose.
These ontological values are transformed into epistemological standards of
judgement in the course of their emergence and clarification in practice. While
each narrative of learning demonstrates a unique form of methodological
inventiveness, the methodologies are recognisable as forms of action research.
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Title: |
Pedagogising a living educational theory curriculum for
healing nurses |
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Authors & affiliations: |
Je Kan Adler-Collins, Fukuoka University, Japan. |
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Abstract: |
The cultural context of my question is the Faculty of
Nursing at Fukuoka Prefectural University in Japan. The history, economics
and politics of this social context are important to my enquiry as I am
seeking to influence the education and the social formation of a new faculty
of nursing through the design and pedagogisation (of a curriculum for healing
and enquiry nurses. This is a context for my own learning between September
2004 & September 2005 as I ask, research and answer the question, 'How am
I developing a curriculum and pedagogy for healing and enquiring nurses in
living my life of learning in educational enquiry?' The research context is focused on my knowledge-creation
as I seek to contribute to the development of a new epistemology for a new
scholarship of educational enquiry for healing nurses. The development of
this epistemology will be studied as part of the process through which the
embodied knowledge of nursing practitioners is validated and legitimated in
the Academy. This will involve the clarification of the embodied values in
the process of their emergence in nursing practice. It will also involve the
clarification of my own embodied values and knowledge as I design and
pedagogise a curriculum for the healing and enquiring nurse. In the process
of this clarification, the embodied values and knowledge will become
transformed into living educational standards of judgment and practice that
can be used to evaluate the validity of my knowledge claims. |
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Title: |
A pedagogy of the unique and web of betweenness |
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Authors & affiliations: |
Margaret Farren, Dublin City University |
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Abstract: |
This presentation analyses the growth of my educational
knowledge as higher education educator, over six years of my self-study, as I
develop my pedagogy of the unique and co-create a curriculum in collaboration
with teachers on an award bearing programme in ICT in education. I will show how I have clarified the meaning of my values
in the course of their emergence in my practice of enquiry. The ontological
values, which I have clarified have become stabilised and have become
epistemological standards of judgement.
One of my stable standards of judgement, the Web of Betweenness
respects the unique constellation of values that I, and practitioners can
contribute to a knowledge base of practice. The Web of Betweenness is a
relational, connected, dialogic and mutually collaborative learning
environment. It has been
generated and sustained through a spirit of community, which values each
human being. ICT can bring
embodied values into the public domain using forms of representation that
move beyond text. This is a professional journey that involved risk, courage
and challenge and I present my explanation of my educational influence in my
own learning as I create my pedagogy of the unique. This includes an analysis
of how I learn and extend my educational knowledge in mutual dialogue and collaboration
with others. |
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Title: |
Developing a postcolonial critical pedagogy and a
postcolonial living educational theory |
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Authors & affiliations: |
Paulus Murray, Royal Agricultural College. |
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Abstract: |
I am a professional educator and practitioner-researcher
who is exploring the development of his postcolonial critical pedagogy in the
creation of a postcolonial living educational theory. I have chosen to give
expression to this research into my educational life as a practice and
narrative of self-reflective inquiry. This presentation is focused on my learning between
September 2004 to September 2005 as I lead a postgraduate Action Masters
course and exercise and develop my living educational standards of judgement.
These living standards are grounded in my embodied knowledge of the loving
spirit of Ubuntu. Being an educator and researcher who self-designates as
ÔMixed RaceÕ means that I am one of those very rare teachers in British
higher education whose ontological development and epistemological interests
have emerged from a dialectical experience within a Whiteness-centred society
(Ifekwunigwe, 1998). In this presentation I will explain how I problematise
ÔWhitenessÕ in my educational practice and clarify the embodied values that
flow through my experience of performing my ÔMixed-RaceÕ identity with the
spirit of Ubuntu. I will be seeking to show that this clarification of my
embodied values transforms them into living and communicable standards of
judgement that can be used in the pedagogisation of inclusive, postcolonial
living educational theories in the Academy. Ifekwunigwe, J. (1998) Scattered
Belongings: Cultural Paradoxes of "Race," Nation and Gender.
London: Routledge
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Title: |
The emergence of a living
theory of responsive practice. |
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Authors & affiliations: |
Marian Naidoo National Institute of Mental Health, England |
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Abstract: |
I am a story teller and the
focus of this narrative is on my learning and the development of my living
educational theory between September 2004 and September 2005 as I have
engaged with others in a creative and critical practice This narrative demonstrates how
I have encouraged people to work creatively, critically and imaginatively in
order to improve the way they relate and communicate in a multi-professional
healthcare setting in order to improve both the quality of care provided and
the well being of the system. In telling the story of the
unique development of my responsive practice I will show how I have been
influenced by the work of theatre practitioners such as Augusto Boal,
educational theorists such as Paulo Freire and drawn on, incorporated and
developed ideas from complexity theory. This original account of my
emerging practice challenges the dominant management theories of life in
organisations which focus on command and control and the reduction of uncertainty
rather than as is explored in this thesis, developing the capacity to live
creatively within uncertainty by exploring identity, strengthening
relationships and improving communication. |
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Title: |
Inclusionality, Llfe, Environment and People |
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Authors & affiliations: |
Alan Rayner, University of Bath |
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Abstract: |
This contribution analyses how I
have lived the following with my undergraduate students. ÒMy intention in the course is
to provide an opportunity for us to reflect and learn together about how to
apply our scientific and biological knowledge effectively and creatively in a
social and environmental context. This joint reflection and learning will
include an enquiry into methods of scientific enquiry, perception and
communication in order to identify possible limitations in current thinking
and prospects for the development of approaches that can enhance and deepen
our understanding of our human relationships with the living world. An important aim will be to
enhance our awareness of the uncertainties implicit in the dynamic processes
that underlie the functioning and ecological and evolutionary responsiveness
of living systems, with a view to developing patterns of working with these
systems that can enhance quality of life. I will draw attention to the need
to seek complementary relationship rather than opposition, and contrast this
with purely objective approaches aimed at imposing control. I will suggest
that working with living systems
requires sensitivity to the receptivity and responsiveness of indeterminate
(dynamically bounded) forms that is often absent when working upon Human-made constructions. The co-evolution of life forms
in tune with their environmental context cannot be equated with the
prescriptive precision of the assembly line. Life is not constructed from a
set of pre-existing Ôbuilding blocksÕ: it is much richer, deeper and more
intimately involved with its ever-changing living space than that metaphor
implies.Ó |
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Title: |
Living critical standards of judgement in educational
theorising |
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Authors & affiliations: |
Jack
Whitehead, University of Bath |
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Abstract: |
This presentation analyses the educational influence
of practitioner-researchers in
their own learning, in the learning of others and in the education of the
social formations in which we live, work and research. The evidential bases
of the analysis are 17 doctoral theses awarded between1996 and 2005 for which
I was sole or joint supervisor, including my own. These can be accessed at http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/living.shtml The analysis will show how each practitioner-researcher
clarifies, in the course of their emergence, in the practice of educational
enquiry, the embodied ontological values to which they hold themselves
accountable in their professional practice. The analysis will also show how, through the process of
clarification, the embodied values are transformed into the living
epistemological standards of critical judgement used to test the validity of
the claims to educational knowledge in each doctoral thesis. These standards
of judgement will include the traditional standards of originality of mind,
critical judgement, original contribution to knowledge and extent and merit
of the work. The scholarly significance of the analysis is that it
shows an inclusional form of educational theorising that overcomes
limitations in the generation of explanations for the educational influence
of individuals in learning, from propositional and dialectical theories of
education. A distinction will be drawn between education theories and
educational theories. This distinction will be used to show how living
educational theories can draw insights from the traditional theories of
education while being resistant to categorisation within any existing
discipline of education. The need to develop a new discipline of educational
enquiry, to explain the educational influence of individuals in their own
learning, in the learning of others and in the education of social
formations, will be explained. |
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