How Can S-STEP Research Contribute to the Enhancement of Civic Responsibility in Schools, Neighborhoods, and Communities

How Can S-STEP Research Contribute to the Enhancement of Civic Responsibility in Schools, Neighborhoods, and Communities?

Jack Whitehead, University of Bath, Bath, UK

e-mail edsajw@bath.ac.uk

A presentation in the session: Becoming Innovative Through Self-Study Research at the 2008 Annual Conference of the American Educational Research Association, New York, 25-29 March 2008.

Abstract

This paper meets criticisms of self-study research that it is too individualistic and cannot contribute to the education of social formations and their transformation. It shows how self-study researchers' commitment to civic responsibility can both enhance the learning of social formations and make original contributions to educational knowledge. The originality is partly in the use of visual narratives in which some of the self-study researchers use video to see themselves as others see them in educational relationships. The explanations of educational influences in learning include the explanatory power of the values and logics used by the self-study researchers in giving meaning and purpose to their lives and work in education.

Introduction

I like the clarity of Noffke's criticism of a living educational approach to action research:

As vital as such a process of self-awareness is to identifying the contradictions between one's espoused theories and one's practices, perhaps because of its focus on individual learning, it only begins to address the social basis of personal belief systems. While such efforts can further a kind of collective agency (McNiff, 1988), it is a sense of agency built on ideas of society as a collection of autonomous individuals. As such, it seems incapable of addressing social issues in terms of the interconnections between personal identity and the claim of experiential knowledge, as well as power and privilege in society (Dolby, 1995; Noffke, 1991). The process of personal transformation through the examination of practice and self-reflection may be a necessary part of social change, especially in education; it is however, not sufficient. ( Noffke, 1997, p. 329)

I shall show how such criticism can be answered through demonstrating how the enhancement of civic responsibility in schools, neighborhoods and communities can be integrated within the generation of living educational theories. I am thinking of the generation of educational theories in the living boundaries of cultures in resistance (Whitehead, 2008a) through combining voices in s-step research. (Whitehead, 2008b). In relation to the exercise of civic responsibility I think that Habermas (2002) is correct in holding to a proceduralist concept of law in his point about civic autonomy in the inclusion of the other when he says that the private autonomy of equally entitled citizens can only be secured insofar as citizens actively exercise their civic autonomy. (p. 264).

The idea of generating living theories in the boundaries of cultures in resistance in important is demonstrating the capability of living educational theories to address social issues in terms of the interconnections between personal identity and the claim of experiential knowledge, as well as power and privilege in society. My understanding of cultures in resistance owes much to Said (1993) when he writes:

As I use the word, 'culture' means two things in particular. First of all it means all those practices, like the arts of description, communication, and representation, that have relative autonomy from the economic, social, and political realms and that often exist in aesthetic forms, one of whose principal aims is pleasure. Included, of course, are both the popular stock of lore about distant parts of the world and specialized knowledge available in such learned disciplines as ethnography, historiography, philology, sociology, and literary history..... Second, and almost imperceptible, culture is a concept that includes a refining and elevating element, each society's reservoir of the best that has been known and thought. As Matthew Arnold put it in the 1860s.... In time, culture comes to be associated, often aggressively, with the nation of the state; this differentiates 'us' from 'them', almost always with some degree of xenophobia. Culture in this sense is a source of identity, and a rather combative one at that, as we see in recent 'returns' to culture and tradition. (Said, pp. xii-xiv, 1993)

I use the first meaning of culture in my thinking that living educational theories are making contributions to culture in their flow through web-space. I think of cultures as living phenomena that are social constructions sustained by collective actions and communications. By the 'living boundaries of cultures in resistance' I am meaning that that there is something expressed in the boundary sustained by one culture that is a direct challenge to something in the other culture. For example, in education there is a political culture that has been imposing a regime of testing in schools. There is a professional culture that has been stressing the importance of creativity. There continues to be tensions in the boundaries of these cultures where there is a resistance to the influence of the boundary of one culture with another.

An s-step enquiry using action research

My concern is to engage in an s-step enquiry into improving my practice by answering the question, 'How can s-step research contribute to the enhancement of civic responsibility in schools, neighborhoods, and communities?' The reason that I am concerned about this is that I want to answer a criticism of a living theory approach to action research by showing that it is capable of addressing social issues in terms of the interconnections between personal identity and the claim of experiential knowledge, as well as power and privilege in society.

I share with Jean McNiff a form of action research into living theories in which we can organise our action enquiries and their account in the terms set out in Whitehead (1989) and developed in McNiff and Whitehead (2006) and Whitehead and McNiff (2006):

What is my concern?
Why am I concerned?

I have answered these above.

What can I do about the situation?

What I can do is to present an evidence-based answer to the question that shows how s-step researchers are contributing to the enhancement of civic responsibility in schools, neighborhoods, and communities? This evidence-based answer below draws on five recently completed living theory theses at Limerick University, four of which include multi-media visual narratives to assist with the communication of the meanings of values. The evidence shows how s-step researchers have generated their living theories and that they are capable of addressing social issues in terms of the interconnections between personal identity and the claim of experiential knowledge, as well as power and privilege in society. The evidence-based answer also draws on an inclusional understanding of neighborhood in a doctoral research programme at Fukuoka University in Japan. This living theory is supported by multi-media data. The s-step researcher, as an educator in Higher Education, researches his own practice in developing and implementing a curriculum for the healing nurse. The evidence-based answer also draws on the s-step research of a teacher in the practice of community as she develops her understandings of living community. In the web-based version of this presentation, you can access the evidence base directly from the urls in the text and references.

How do I ensure that any conclusions I come to are reasonably fair and accurate?

I usually use Habermas' (1976) four criteria of social validity to ensure that my conclusions are fair and accurate. By this I mean that I subject them to peer validation, such as this symposium, in which I ask for critical evaluations in terms of the comprehensibility, the adequacy of the evidence in relation to the claims I make, the explicitness of the assumptions in the normative background I am using, and my authenticity in the sense of showing, with evidence over time in interaction that I believe what I say. In the case of much of the evidence presented below it has the additional critical evaluation of the examination of doctoral degrees. Whilst this is not an absolute safeguard it does tend to strengthen the processes of validation and legitimation.

How do I explain the significance of my educational influences in learning?

I explain the significance of my educational influences in learning in terms of a perspective of inclusionality in living theories in schools, neighborhoods and communities. The evidence-based explanation shows where new living standards of judgment for a new epistemology of educational enquiry have been legitimated in the Academy.

Here is an account of my s-step enquiry into living theories generated in:

A) Schools

In answering the question, How Can S-STEP Research Contribute to the Enhancement of Civic Responsibility in Schools, Neighborhoods, and Communities?, in a dynamic relationships between schools, neighborhoods and communities I want to begin by using the evidence of 5 living theory doctoral theses legitimated by the University of Limerick over the past two years from s-step researcher who have been researching in schools:

Máirín Glenn (2006) Working With Collaborative Projects: My Living Theory Of A Holistic Educational Practice.

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 Realize Our Learning Potentials?

Mary Roche (2007) Towards A Living Theory Of Caring Pedagogy: Interrogating My Practice To Nurture A Critical, Emancipatory And Just Community Of Enquiry .

Bernie Sullivan (2006) A Living Theory Of A Practice Of Social Justice: Realizing The Right Of Traveler Children To Educational Equality .

Margaret Cahill (2007) My Living Educational Theory Of Inclusional Practice .

What these theses show is the capability of living theorists to address social issues in terms of the interconnections between personal identity and the claim of experiential knowledge, as well as power and privilege in society. Each self-study researcher has provided a living theory as an explanation of their educational influence in their own learning, in the learning of others and in social formations in which they are living and working. Issues of ensuring equality of educational opportunity are explicitly addressed, for example, in the work of McDonagh, Roche and Sullivan.

Cahill (2007) demonstrates the significance of democratic public discourses in the generation of her living theory: 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. (Abstract)

Glenn (2006) makes the point: A distinctive feature of my research account is my articulation of how my ontological values of love and care have transformed into my living critical epistemological standards of judgment, as I produce my multimedia evidence-based living theory of a holistic educational practice. Through working with collaborative multimedia projects, I explain how I have developed an epistemology of practice that enables me to account for my educational influence in learning. (Abstract)

In relation to Glenn's influence in terms of power and privilege in society I draw on Habermas' (1975) ideas about a legitimation crisis in which dominant forms of power are challenged by new standards of judgment. By bringing ontological values of love and care into critical standards of judgment that have been legitimated in the Academy, Glenn has demonstrated how her living educational theory has become part of a transformatory influence in establishing new standards of judgment in the Academy.

Having focused on the exercise of the values of civic responsibility in the generation of living theories from s-step research in schools, I now want to focus on their generation in relation to neighborhoods and communities.

B) Neighborhoods

The shift in perception of researchers like myself who, until 2002, focused on propositional and dialectical claims to knowledge in s-step research, into inclusionality requires a relational dynamic awareness of space and boundaries (Rayner, 2005b) in understanding neighborhood.

In his thinking about the inclusional nature of neighborhood Rayner (2005a) says that: We human beings can combine an awareness of non-local presence, through our gyroscopic sensing of dynamic balance, with the ability to detect local presence using our eyesight and tactile senses. Hence we come fully equipped to develop our individual consciousness as local expressions of the larger spatial neighbourhood in which we are immersed and of which we are dynamic inclusions, like solutes inextricably in solution with solvent...Hence we can appreciate our complex self-identities as loving neighbourhoods in dynamic relationship, simultaneously both somewhere particular (local) and everywhere around (non-local). This could just be the most profound transformation in our conscious human comprehension of and about all time.

In answering the question 'How can s-step research contribute to the enhancement of civic responsibility in schools, neighborhoods, and communities?', in terms of the above idea of neighbourhood, I turn to the doctoral research programme of Je Kan Adler-Collins (2007). Adler-Collins has researched his complex self-identity as loving neighbourhoods in dynamic relationship in which he is both transforming and being transformed in the living boundaries of cultures in resistance. As an s-step researcher in higher education he has developed and implemented a curriculum for the healing nurse in a Japanese University. He examines the 'whiteness of his rightness' as he moves from a mainly white UK culture into the culture of a Japanese University.

Drawing on his Buddhist spirituality he brings an energy-flowing, living standard of inclusionality, as a space creator for engaged listening and informed learning, as an original contribution to educational knowledge. Adler-Collins examines the demographic evidence in Japan to show that it is on the brink of a health crisis in relation to care of the elderly. Working with the values of civic responsibility for wellbeing in communities, Adler Collins demonstrates how s-step research can contribute to the enhancement of civic responsibility through an inclusional approach to neighborhood.

There is an issue of logic to understand in explanations that are produced from a perspective of inclusionality. Most academics produce explanations that are comprehensible with a propositional logic that excludes contradictions between statements from theories. Other academic produce dialectical explanations that are grounded in contradictions in the sense of holding together two mutually exclusive opposites. Dialecticians and propositional thinkers have a history of denying the rationality of the other's position (Marcuse, 1964; Popper, 1963). Explanations from an inclusional perspective use the living logics of inclusionality. By this I mean that the relationally dynamic explanations of inclusionality can integrate insights from propositional and dialectical explanations without denying the rationality of either logic. This is shown in the work of Claire Formby below in an enquiry into, How do I sustain a loving, receptively responsive educational relationship with my pupils which will motivate them in their learning and encourage me in my teaching?

C) Community

Another s-step researcher, Terri Austin (2001) has focused on the contribution of her knowledge-creation in her doctoral research programme, to the practice of community. Evidence for her focus on community can be appreciated in the titles of her 9 chapters:

Welcoming Community: A Personal Invitation  ; Seeking Community: A Mindful Journey ;  Uncovering Community: Treasures in the Snow  ; Offering Community: Are We There Yet?  ;  Building Community: A Tangle of Boundaries  ; Leaving Community: An Unexpected Event  ;  Discovering Community: Unwrapping Surprises  ;  Living Community: A Grand Adventure  ; Continuing Community: A Look Forward  .

Drawing on Tannen's (1998) ideas on moving beyond an argument culture Austin shares her knowledge-creation through a process of enquiry into living community. In a note to the reading of her chapter on Living Community Austin makes the points:

Note to the Reader

This chapter begins with still another letter to you. The purpose of this note to make sure we're still together as I draw conclusions concerning my study. I begin by pointing out my initial assumptions, then give a brief review of my inquiry, and next move into my present thoughts concerning community.

In the next section of this chapter, I thoroughly discuss my two original contributions to the educational profession. In each of my claims focusing on my knowledge creation and construction of an alternative form of criticism, I illustrate how I use creativity to attempt to fully live out my values.

The chapter finishes with bringing you into the present by sharing my involvement in two new communities. The first is a charter school where, as a co-founder, I incorporated many facets of community learned through this inquiry. The second community is a restructured ATRN again based on knowledge gained from this study. Both offer new challenges in thinking about community. The chapter concludes with a personal note to you with the hope we will continue the community we've established through the interaction of the ideas presented in this thesis.

In the forming and sustaining of the Charter School in her post-doctoral enquiries Austin had to negotiate funding with a School Board and encountered the boundaries of cultures in resistance as she continued her practice of community. What I find inspiring about Austin's narrative is that it contributes to my understanding of the importance of courage and sustained commitment in answering the question, How Can S-STEP Research Contribute to the Enhancement of Civic Responsibility in Schools, Neighborhoods, and Communities?

Conclusion

My response to the question has been to focus on the generation of living educational theories. The evidence in the living theories above demonstrates how s-step research has been contributing to the enhancement of civic responsibility in schools, neighborhoods and communities. The most recent evidence is in a contribution by Jean McNiff to this conference in which she accounts for her own learning with two groups of educators in South Africa, a group of teachers in Khayelitsha, a township 30 kilometres east of Cape Town, and a group of academic staff at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth. McNiff (2007) has also provided an explanation for her own learning, in her story as her living educational theory, as she develops her work in South Africa and meets and responds to diverse cultural expectations.

The action reflection cycle I often use takes me to the question:

How do I modify my ideas and practices in light of my evaluation?

Having evaluated my answer above as an adequate response to the concern about living theories as it demonstrates their capability to engage with issues of both personal identity and power and privilege in society, I am aware that my ideas and practices are now focusing on extending the influences of living educational theories in the boundaries of cultures in resistance. One of these boundaries is being experienced in many schools in the UK.

The UK government has established a culture of testing that has provoked resistance from professional educators who subscribe to a culture of education in which creativity and personalised learning is valued. Each Tuesday and Thursday evenings in Bath I meet with educators who are working in the living boundaries of these cultures in resistance in their schools and towards their masters degree in the University. You can access their accounts, in which they are bringing their embodied knowledge as educators into the academy for recognition in masters degrees, at http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/mastermod.shtml .

I am fascinated by the possibility of enhancing our influence, as we work and research together, through combining our voices as teacher-researchers with other researchers in the generation and sharing of living theories. I have found visual narratives most conducive for communicating the meanings of energy flowing values in explanations of educational influence. For example Joy Mounter (2007) has explained how the influences of her explanations of educational influence in learning were enhanced by the co-creation of the explanations with her 6-year-old pupils. You can access this enquiry on; can children carry out action research about learning, creating their own learning theory? at http://www.jackwhitehead.com/tuesdayma/joymounterull.htm. In the appendix two of this enquiry you can access the video-clips on YouTube in which the six-year-old pupils demonstrate their originality in developing their own learning theory.

I am impressed by Claire Formby's (2007) writings on how do I sustain a loving, receptively responsive educational relationship with my pupils which will motivate them in their learning and encourage me in my teaching?

http://www.jackwhitehead.com/tuesdayma/formbyEE300907.htm . The video-data integrated within the visual narrative has enabled the communication of the meanings of 'a loving, receptively responsive educational relationship'. These meanings include the non-verbal expression and experience of flows of life-affirming energy with values. Such visual narratives enable the representations and communication of explanations with the living logics of inclusionality. What I mean by this is that the explanations can contain insights from propositional and dialectical theories while communicating a mode of thought that is appropriate for comprehending the real as rational (Marcuse, 1964, p. 105) in terms of:

"...an inspiring pooling-of-consciousness that seems to include and connect all within all in unifying dynamical communion.... The concreteness of 'local object being'... allows us to understand the dynamics of the common living-space in which we are all ineluctably included participants." (Lumley, 2008, p.3)

Je Kan Adler Collins used some of the ideas of Joan Wink, his external examiner, in his thesis. On his trip to Bath for his viva he brought three of her books on Critical Pedagogy (Wink, 2004), Vygotsky (Wink & Putney, 2002) and Teaching Passionately: What's Love Got To Do With It? (Wink & Wink 2003). These books are now in the Library of the University of Bath and s-step researchers in the masters groups I tutor have already got the copies on loan and we are working on integrating insights from her work into our own! Through combining voices, in enhancing the expression of loving, receptively responsive educational relationships with our pupils, students and each other, I believe that we will continue to strengthen the contribution that our s-step research makes to the expression of our civic responsibility in schools, neighborhoods, and communities. Wood, Morar and Mostert (2007) working and researching in South Africa in the development of their living theory action research provide evidence for the educational influence of their living theories in the exercise of their civic responsibility in schools, neighbourhoods and communities.

I shall end with the recognition of the importance of helping each other to understand, through the most advanced social theories of the day, the nature of the boundaries of the cultures in resistance that we are living in.

I often use the following quote by Bernstein (2000) to warn me of a danger of contributing to mythological discourses that can create an illusion of educational transformation. In reality this kind of discourse is reproducing an existing social formation because of a lack of engagement with the power relations that are sustaining violations of the values of humanity:

"By creating a fundamental identity, a discourse is created which generates what I shall call horizontal solidarities among their staff and students, irrespective of the political ideology and social arrangement of the society. The discourse which produces horizontal solidarities or attempts to produce such solidarities from this point of view I call a mythological discourse. This mythological discourse consists of two pairs of elements which, although having different functions, combine to reinforce each other. One pair celebrates and attempts to produce a united, integrated, apparently common national consciousness; the other pair work together to disconnect hierarchies within the school from a causal relation with social hierarchies outside the school." (p. xxiii)

In the evidence-based analysis above I believe that I have shown how living educational theories can engage with the living boundaries of cultures in resistance to enhance the expression of values of humanity. This includes an understanding of the cultural dynamics that are resisting the expression of these values and understandings.

So, I end with the expression of a life-affirming energy that my hope can combine with your own in enhancing the flow of the living educational theories of our pupils, students, each other and others. Many thanks for the opportunity once again to share and develop ideas in our s-step forum at AERA.

References

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