How Do We Explain Our
Educational Influence in Living Our Democratic Values?
Jack Whitehead,
University of Bath
Jean McNiff,
University of Limerick
A presentation to the
AERA Annual Conference on Demography and Democracy in the Era of
Accountability, 13 April 2005, Montreal.
Session 40.041 Action Research in Higher Education.
In this paper we set out how we hold ourselves
accountable for our educational influences in our local and global contexts as
we offer our action research stories of educational theorising. Our
accountability is grounded in a process of democratic evaluation (1). In this
paper we will show how clarifying our ontological values such as freedom,
truth, beauty and justice, transforms them into living epistemological
standards of judgement for the new scholarship of teacher education (2). We
explain our understanding of the generative transformational nature of emergent
processes of action research, both at the practical level of the formation of
social relationships and also at the theoretical level of the formation of
conceptual relationships, and the relationship between the two. In our
presentation, using linguistic and visual representations, we show how we are able
to explicate the meanings that are embodied in the kinds of productive work and
loving relationships (3) that animate our lives, and by which we justify our
local, national and global influence as we aim to exercise our educative
potentials for social transformation.
In holding ourselves to account, in relation to our values, understandings and educational influences, we work with a process of democratic evaluation that accepts BernsteinÕs definition of the conditions for an effective democracy:
ÒFirst
of all, there are the conditions for an effective democracy. I am
not going to derive these from high-order principles; I am just going to
announce them. The first condition is that people must feel that they have a
stake in society. Stake may be a bad metaphor, because by stake I mean that not
only are people concerned to receive something but that they are also concerned
to give something. This notion of stake has two aspects to it, the receiving
and the giving. People must feel that they have a stake in both senses of the
term.
Second, people must have confidence that the
political arrangements they create will realise this stake, or give grounds if
they do not. In a sense it does not matter too much if this stake is not
realised, or only partly realised, providing there are good grounds for it not
being realised or only partly realised." (Bernstein, 2000, p. xx).
Following MacDonald (1976) we see the basic value of
democratic evaluation as being an informed citizenry. We also believe that
democratic evaluation can assist, at times that have been characterised in terms of paradigm proliferation
(Donmoyer, 1996), in determining the adequacy and explanatory power of
educational theories. We are thinking of educational theories such as our own
that claim to have the capacity to explain the educational influences of
individuals in their own learning, in the learning of others and in the
education of social formations.
Like Macintyre we value the ideas of the adequacy and explanatory power
in our search to make contributions to educational knowledge.
"The rival claims to truth of
contending traditions of enquiry depend for their vindication upon the adequacy
and the explanatory power of the histories which the resources of each of those
traditions in conflict enable their adherents to write." (Macintyre, 1988, p. 403)
In our paper we explain how, throughout our lives of
educational enquiry, our aim has been to reconceptualise the nature,
development and use of educational theory through the development and
legitimation of action research (4, 5). This has meant critiquing traditional
forms of social science theory that are grounded in propositional analysis and
engaging instead in generating transformational forms of education that are
grounded in real lives. It has involved our coming to appreciate the damaging
potentials (6) of traditional forms of propositional theory and learning how to
transform those potentials into life-affirming processes by incorporating the
insights from traditional theories into our own living theories (7).
The need to reconceptualise educational theory emerged over
twenty years ago from the recognition of a mistake in the view that educational
theory was constituted by disciplines of education, such as the philosophy,
psychology, sociology and history of education. This mistake was recognised by
Paul Hirst, one of the original proponents of the ÔdisciplinesÕ approach when
he said that much understanding of educational theory will be developed:
"É in the context of immediate practical experience
and will be co-terminous with everyday understanding. In particular, many of
its operational principles, both explicit and implicit, will be of their nature
generalisations from practical experience and have as their justification the
results of individual activities and practices.
In many characterisations of educational theory, my own
included, principles justified in this way have until recently been regarded as
at best pragmatic maxims having a first crude and superficial justification in
practice that in any rationally developed theory would be replaced by
principles with more fundamental, theoretical justification. That now seems to
me to be a mistake. Rationally defensible practical principles, I suggest, must
of their nature stand up to such practical tests and without that are
necessarily inadequate."
(Hirst, 1983, p. 18)
Our main criticism of constituting educational theory as a
propositional theory is that such theories abide by the Aristotelean Law of
Contradiction that eliminates from theory the possibility that two mutual
exclusive statements can be true simultaneously. In our understanding of an educational theory it must have
the capacity to explain our educational influence in our own learning, in the
learning of others or in the education of a social formation. In our
explanations, of our educational influences in our own learning, we recognise
the significance of our existence as living contradictions as we explore
questions of the kind, Ôhow do I improve what I am doing?Õ In understanding and
explaining our learning as living contradictions we feel the absurdity in
attempting to explain this learning in terms of any propositional theory that
eliminates contradictions from the explanation. In saying this we recognise the truth of power that is
sustaining the 2,500 year old cultural legacy of Aristotelean logic in the
Academy.
In both our doctorates (McNiff, 1989, Whitehead, 1999) we
demonstrate how we have created our own living educational theories as
explanations of our educational influences in our own learning as we explore
the implications of asking, researching and answering questions of the kind,
Ôhow do I improve what I am doing?Õ In producing our explanations for this
learning, within our dialogical and dialectical enquiries we drew insights from
several propositional theories in such a way that our examiners could see the
necessary extent and merit of our work, as well as our originalities of mind
and critical judgement, to recommend the award of our doctorates.
Our focus on the development of living educational
theories has meant coming to understand the nature and development of our own
lives of enquiry (8) as we find ways of producing accounts of practices that
will inform the education of social formations ( 8, 9, 10, 11), recognising the
centrality of the explicit articulation of the validation processes involved
that enables practitioners to hold themselves accountable for their work.
In developing our living educational theories as
explanations of our educational influences in the education of social
formations we draw ideas from two social theorists who have analysed social
formations. From Bourdieu we understand the idea of the power of the habitus in
analysing social formations:
ÒÉ. social science makes greatest use of the language of rules precisely in the cases where it is most totally inadequate, that is, in analysing social formations in which, because of the constancy of the objective conditions over time, rules have a particularly small part to play in the determination of practices, which is largely entrusted to the automatisms of the habitus.Ó
(Bourdieu, p. 145, 1990)
For Bourdieu the habitus is embodied history. It is internalized as a second nature and so forgotten as history and is the active presence of the whole past of which it is the product. The habitus is what gives practices their relative autonomy with respect to external determinations of the immediate present. Bourdieu says that this autonomy is that of the past, enacted and acting, which functioning as accumulated capital, produces history on the basis of history and so ensures the permanence in change which makes the individual agent a world within the world. The habitus is a spontaneity without consciousness or will, opposed as much to the mechanical necessity of things without history in mechanistic theories as it is to the reflexive freedom of subjects Ôwithout inertiaÕ in rationalist theories. (Bourdieu, p. 56, 1990)
The academic habitus we inhabit supports the truth of power of Aristotlean Logic, or as Marcuse describes it, the logic of domination (Marcuse, p.105, 1964). When we write about our educational influence in the education of social formations we are referring to our influence in the pedagogisation of living educational theories in higher education. We have drawn this idea of pedagogisation from BernsteinÕs analysis of the importance of pedagogy in his work on pedagogy, symbolic control and identity:
Pedagogy is a sustained process whereby somebody(s) acquires new forms or develops existing forms of conduct, knowledge, practice and criteria from somebody(s) or something deemed to be an appropriate provider and evaluator - appropriate either from the point of view of the acquirer or by some other body(s) or both (Bernstein, p.78, 2000).
When Bernstein writes about pedagogy he refers to pedagogic relations that shape pedagogic communications and their relevant contexts. He distinguishes three basic forms of pedagogic relation, explicit, implicit and tacit. We focus on explicit pedagogic relations where we have a purposeful intention to initiate, modify, develop or change knowledge and where those in an educational relationship with us define the relation as legitimate (p.200). By this we mean that the explicit educational intention in our pedagogic relations is to support the generation of testing of the living educational theories of other practitioner-researchers as well as of each other.
In our recognition of the centrality of the explicit
articulation of the validation processes we use that enables practitioners to
hold themselves accountable for the educational influence in their work, we are
mindful of the influence of three ideas from the work of Habermas on social
validation, learning and justification in moral discourses.
In seeking to strengthen the validity of living educational
theories we agree with HabermasÕ point about the importance, for social
validity, of ensuring that the accounts are comprehensible, that sufficient evidence
is provided to justify the assertions, that the normative background of the
account is made explicit and that the accounts are authentic in that the writer
shows over time and in interaction that they are committed to what they claim
to be committed to (Habermas, 1976).
Like Habermas we focus on the importance of learning in the
creation of living educational theories. In his work on the legitimation crisis
he points to an autonomic inability not to learn as the fundamental mechanism
for social evolution.
'It
is my conjecture that the fundamental mechanism for social evolution in general
is to be found in an automatic inability not to learn. Not learning but not-learning is the phenomenon
that calls for explanation at the socio-cultural stage of development. Therein
lies, if you will, the rationality of man. Only against this background does
the over-powering irrationality of the history of the species become visible.' (emphasis in original) (Habermas, p. 15,1975)
He
continues to stress the importance of learning in his theory of communicative
action where he points out that theory generation:
ÒÉ. must orient itself to the range of learning processes
that is opened up at a given time by a historically attained level of learning.
It must refrain from critically evaluating and normatively ordering totalities,
forms of life and cultures, and life-contexts and epochs as a whole. And yet it
can take up some of the intentions for which the interdisciplinary research
program of earlier critical theory remains instructive.
Coming at the end of a complicated study of the main features of a theory of communicative action, this suggestion cannot count even as a Òpromissory note.Ó It is less a promise than a conjecture.Ó (Habermas, 1987, p. 383)
In our focus on living educational theories that can explain educational influences in the education of social formations we also bear in mind HabermasÕ idea that the private autonomy of equally entitled citizens can only be secured only insofar as citizens actively exercise their civic autonomy:
"The dispute between the two received paradigms -
whether the autonomy of legal persons is better secured through individual
liberties for private competition or through publicly guaranteed entitlements
for clients of welfare bureaucracies - is superseded by a proceduralist concept
of law. According to this conception, the democratic process must secure
private and public autonomy at the same time: the individual rights that are
meant to guarantee to women the autonomy to pursue their lives in the private
sphere cannot even be adequately formulated unless the affected persons
themselves first articulate and justify in public debate those aspects
that are relevant to equal or unequal treatment in typical cases. The private autonomy of equally entitled citizens can only be secured only insofar as citizens actively exercise their civic autonomy." (Habermas, 2002, p.264)
In
producing accounts of educational influences in learning we are mindful of the
theoretical resource of Rorty where he writes of narratives that connect the
present with the past, on the one hand, and with utopian futures, on the other.
We agree with Rorty about what he calls the contingency of language – the
fact that there is no way to step outside the various vocabularies we employ to
find a metavocabulary which somehow takes account of all possible vocabularies,
all possible ways of judging and feeling (Rorty, 1989, p. xvi). When Rorty
advocates a general turn against theory and toward narrative we understand him
to be writing about propositional theories. Rather than seeing our work as a
turn against such theories we prefer to embrace insights from propositional
theories and to see our narratives, in which we explain our educational
influences in learning, as our living educational theories.
Our own accounts of practice, including this paper,
contain the descriptions and explanations we offer for our collaborative
learning practices as we encourage other educators also to produce descriptive
and explanatory accounts of their practice. These accounts, including our own,
contain the personal I-theories of education (12) that make clear the
philosophical base of practitionersÕ work. We show how those theories are
generative and transformational in nature, and mirror the generative
transformational nature of the living practices of educators as they strive to
live their educational values in their practice.
We are thinking here of our doctoral theses (McNiff, 1989;
Whitehead, 1999) and the living theory theses flowing through web-space from:
http://www.actionresearch.net/living.shtml
If you browse through this titles and abstracts of these
theses you will see accounts of personal I-theories of education that have been
awarded their doctorates of philosophy for the generation of original
contributions to educational knowledge. Each thesis clarifies the philosophical
base of the practitioner-researcherÕs educational enquiry in the explication of
the ontologies, epistemologies and methodologies at work in the enquiry. The
theses are transformatory in the sense that they demonstrate the possibility of
legitimating enquiries of the kind, ÔHow do I improve what I am doing?Õ in the
Academy. Our doctorates mirrored the generative transformational nature of our
practices as educators as we explored the implications of asking, researching
and answering the above question. We believe that you will recognise this kind
of question as one that you are asking yourselves as you strive to live your
educational values in your practice. Our belief is open to your validation or
refutation. We will return to this point about validation in the section below
on data sources.
Our accounts of practice, in which we foreground the
need to make clear the evidence base of our validity claims, show the
transformational processes involved in realising our educational values as real
life relationships, and how those real life relationships then transform into
the living manifestations of our ontological commitments. As we produce our
accounts of practice, we show how those ontological commitments transform into
the epistemological standards we use in our accounts of practice to judge the
validity of our claims to educational knowledge.
The transformation processes we have in mind here involve an
action research process in which we feel a tension and express our concerns
when we are not living our values as fully as we think we could do. As we
experience this tension our imaginations work to create an action plan that we
believe will move us towards the fully realisation of our values. We act on
this and gather data that we believe will enable us to make a judgement about
the effectiveness of our actions in relation to our values. We evaluate our
actions and modify our concerns, ideas and actions in the light of the
evaluation. We produce an account of our educational influences in learning
which we submit to social validation and continue with our enquiries into
improving our practice.
In this process of explaining our educational influences in
learning, we clarify the meanings of our values as these emerge in the practice
of our enquiry. This clarification involves language. The process of
clarification transforms our experience of our embodied values into the living
and communicable epistemological standards of judgement we use to evaluate the
validity of our explanations of our educational influence. If you would like more details of this
process the following presentation to the British Educational Research
Association is flowing through web-space:
Whitehead, J. & McNiff, J. (2004) Ontological, epistemological and
methodological commitments in practitioner-research. Paper presented at the
BERA 04 Symposium 17 Sept. in Manchester on: "Have We Created A New
Epistemology For The New Scholarship Of Educational Enquiry Through
Practitioner Research? Developing Sustainable Global Educational Networks Of
Communication" Retrieved on 31 March 2005 from Education-line at http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00003800.htm
In
our educational enquiries we seek to remain open to the possibilities that life
itself permits and our living educational theories recognise this openness in
our resistance to explaining our educational influences in learning from within
a logic of domination that creates a closed system of thought within a
propositional theory. Here is what we said about our modes of enquiry in our
original proposal:
We work as professional educators across a range of demographic
and professional constituencies in England and across the globe. Our modes of enquiry
are informed by a living theory approach to action research in which we ask, research
and answer questions of the kind, ÕHow are we improving our practices?Õ in the contexts
our workplaces. These contexts influence our modes of enquiry as we encounter the
different power relations that sustain different views as to what counts as evidence
and knowledge in educational enquiries (13).
Examples of this can be seen in WhiteheadÕs analyses of the
growth of his educational knowledge. In his 1993 text (http://www.actionresearch.net/bk93/geki.htm)
Whitehead explains how context influenced his mode of enquiry as he encountered
power relations that threatened his employment as an educational researcher and
exercised the disciplinary truth of power in rejecting earlier doctoral
submissions with the explicit denial of any right to question the judgements of
examiners. He explained how such experiences moved his mode of enquiry into the
theoretical writings of Habermas, Foucault, Bernstein and MacIntyre in his
search for understanding.
In his 2004 multi-media presentation of the growth of his
educational knowledge (http://www.arexpeditions.montana.edu/articleviewer.php?AID=80)
Whitehead includes a multi-media, visual narrative of a performance text to
communicate his passions for living justice, academic freedom, integrity and
freedom in his work. This can be
accessed from the AERA Action Research SIG Newsletter of March 2005 at:
http://coe.westga.edu/arsig/PDFs/ARNewsletter_V5_I2.pdf
In our mode of enquiry of a living theory approach to
action research we have supervised practitioners in workplace settings around
the world. We have analysed our educational influence in their higher degree
enquiries as they investigate their practice and ask questions of the form,
ÔHow do I improve my practice here?Õ (9). This work, spanning some three
decades, has resulted in the development of a new knowledge base (14, 15) that has grown in educational
importance. This knowledge-base comprises both the published accounts of
practitioners, in the form of their masters and doctoral dissertations and theses
that show how those practitioners can justifiably claim to have improved the
quality of learning experience for themselves and others (16) in the growth and
use of educational knowledge.
Examples of the living theory dissertations and theses we
have supervised can be seen in the action research theses section of:
http://www.jeanmcniff.com/ at http://www.jeanmcniff.com/reports.html
and at: http://www.actionresearch.net/living.shtml
Examples of our analyses of our educational influences can
be seen in:
McNiff,
J., McNamara, G. & Leonard, D. (2000) Action Research in Ireland Dorset,
September Books.
and
in:
Whitehead,
J. (1993) The Growth of Educational Knowledge, Bournemouth; Hyde Publications.
Retrieved on 31 March 2005 from http://www.actionresearch.net/bk93/geki.htm
Our modes of enquiry into our educational influence
include a discourse analysis that demonstrates the growing educational
influence of this knowledge-base both at the practical level of supporting the
continuing professional development of practitioners, and at the theoretical
level of influencing what counts as educational theory and who counts as an
knowing educator.
We are thinking here of a discourse analysis that focuses on
the inclusion of ÔIÕ as a living contradiction in educational enquiries of the
kind, ÔHow do I improve what I am doing?Õ We are thinking of the use of the
term living educational theories to refer to the explanations of educational
influences in learning that are produced in such enquiries. We are thinking of
the use of action-reflection cycles in the clarification of the meanings of embodied
values and their transformation into living epistemological standards of
judgement. We are also thinking of the inclusion of the idea of educating
social formations in the creation of living educational theories.
One of the most impressive examples of the originality of mind and critical judgement of a living educational theorist, in demonstrating an educational influence in the education of a social formation, can be seen on Margaret FarrenÕs website at http://webpages.dcu.ie/~farrenm/ .
Clicking on the Educators section at http://webpages.dcu.ie/~farrenm/currentwork.html
brings you to the Dissertations section at http://webpages.dcu.ie/~farrenm/dissertations.html
where you will find examples of living educational theory
theses, supervised by Farren and legitimated by Dublin City University. Those colleagues who wish to see such
accounts of educational influence in learning, legitimated in their own
Universities, may find inspiration as we do, from this demonstrate of what is
possible on Margaret FarrenÕs web-site.
In demonstrating her own originality of mind, Farren also shows our
educational influence and in turn influences our own learning with her idea of
the significance of development our pedagogies of the unique.
We will show how our modes of enquiry themselves are
in transition, as we extend attention from a focus on supporting practitioners
in the production of their educational accounts. Our focus moves to an
understanding of how the dissemination of our findings can act as a form of
social transformation that includes the interconnecting and branching networks
of communication of the internet. We now turn to the data sources we will draw
on in testing the validity of our claims to know the educational influence of
our action research.
One of the great benefits of Information and Communication Technologies is that they permit access to data sources that are flowing through web-space and can be accessed by anyone, anywhere who has access to the web. If you viewing this presentation in a web-browser you should be able to access each of the data sources below by clicking on:
http://www.jeanmcniff.com/reports.html
and
http://www.actionresearch.net/living.shtml
Our data sources are the results of our supervisions
to successful completion over the last ten years of some 18 doctoral theses and
70 masters dissertations from the range of demographic contexts below.
These data sources include the successful completions
of the following educational enquiries:
How can I improve my practice as a teacher in the
area of assessment through the use of portfolios? – this data source is
from an Irish context.
The art of an educational enquirer. – this
data source is from Singapore.
How can I improve my teaching of pupils with
specific learning difficulties in the area of language? – this data
source is from an Irish context.
How can I help to enable sustainable educational
development in our Action Research Centre at Guyuan Teachers College? –
this data source is from a Chinese context.
How can I help the primary school children I teach
to develop their self-esteem? – this data source is from an Irish
context.
A Self Study Of A Higher Education Tutor: How Can I
Improve My Practice? – this data source is from the context of a UK
University.
How Can I Improve My Practice As A Superintendent
of Schools and Create My Own Living Educational Theory? - this data source includes the
development of a culture of enquiry within a large district school board in
North America.
The Making of an International Educator with Spiritual
Values. - this data source includes an analysis of educational influence in
Western Samoa, Fiji, Mauritius, Singapore, Hong Kong and the UK.
Our data sources also include our self-study action
research accounts of our educational influences and relationships in our
enquiries:
How do we
develop relationships that can be understood as free, truthful, beautiful and
just?
How do we develop democratic relationships?
How do we inform the education of wider social
formations by showing the educative potentials of personal relationships?
How do we show the educative power of the propensity
for community?Õ
Our data sources include the linguistic and visual
representations of these enquiries.
When we say that our modes of enquiry are themselves living and in transition we have in mind our developing perspectives on inclusionality and collaborative living educational theories. Drawing insights from RaynerÕs (2005) work on inclusionality we are developing our inclusional enquiries from an awareness of space and boundaries that are connective, reflexive and co-creative. The inclusion of space in our awareness, especially the connective potential of web-space, can be seen to be influencing our modes of enquiry in this presentation. Through the inclusion of web-space we are able to connect to each other in ways that were not possible some twenty years ago. The connections made to the work of Margaret Farren above will serve to make this point. This inclusion of web-space in our enquiries includes boundaries that are connective, reflexive and co-creative. These are shown in the resources flowing through the interconnecting and branching networks of communication of web-space. Our creative and critical responses to the learning opportunities opened up by the technology continue to support our educational influences in our learning and to enabling our modes of enquiry to be sustained, living and in transition.
We are also drawing insights from the work of Tian (2005) and Tian and Laidlaw (2005) together with their colleagues on the development of collaborative living educational theories at ChinaÕs Experimental Centre for Educational Action Research in Foreign Languages Teaching hosted by Guyuan TeachersÕ College, where we are both visiting professors.
We hope that you will feel the educational influence of an inclusional awareness in your own learning as you access the living theory accounts at:
http://www.actionresearch.net/moira.shtml
You will be able to access the photograph from the 30th
September 2004 of the China Friendship awards with Wen Jiaboa, Premier of the
State Council that shows the recognition of Moira LaidlawÕs contribution to
education in China. The images of the award and accreditation as visiting
professor, together with Dean TianÕs introduction to the first Annual
International Conference of the Centre, serve to reinforce our own inclusional
awareness. We believe that reading the accounts of teacher-researchers in China
who are producing their own narratives with Chinese characteristics will do
much to enhance the flow of values that may characterise our common humanity.
As you browse down the list of accounts you may also find inspiration from
reading LaidlawÕs accounts of her own learning as a teacher at Oldfield Girls
School in Bath as well as her accounts of her learning with her colleagues at
the Centre.
Peggy LeongÕs research as a teacher and manager in the Academy of Best Learning in Education (ABLE) in the Institute of Technical Education in Singapore (http://www.ite.edu.sg/~able/)
may also inspire you. LeongÕs living educational theory dissertation on the ÔArt of an Educational InquirerÕ is a delightful analysis of an individual seeking to sustain her sense of integrity in moving between the cultures of Singapore and the UK (http://www.actionresearch.net/peggy.shtml ). You can access the recent thinking of Leong and her colleagues at http://edt.ite.edu.sg/ite_conf/index.htm
We hope that our conclusions and thoughts below on the educational significance of our educational enquiries so far, will serve, alongside this presentation, to stimulate a communication with you that will help to enhance the flow of values that carry hope for the future of humanity and our own.
Conclusions
We believe that our lifelong research processes
demonstrate ever-emergent property in the form of the ongoing realisation of an
infinite capacity for learning, which in itself has infinite capacity for
educative influence across multiple contexts. Our evidence shows how the
practical development of individual awareness can transform into community
activism (16); and how the theoretical development of one concept, for example
ÔwomenÕs ways of knowing, can transform into a new system of ideas (11). It
also shows the interpenetrating nature of the relationship between practice and
theory: how practice can act as the grounds for the creation of new theory,
which can then feed back into practice in modified forms, which themselves have
to be tested in relation to appropriate epistemological standards of judgement
which, in our understanding, take the form of a practical realisation of
educational values. Using the mode of enquiry of methodological inventiveness
(17) we will analyse the development of an educational research methodology and
epistemology that are grounded in our ontological commitments. This mode of
enquiry includes our use of multimedia technologies in the creation of visual
narratives of our educational relationships and influences.
We believe that the educational significance of our
work lies in our capacity to clarify the processes we engage in as we explicate
the meanings of our lives in educational relation with others. This
clarification takes into account issues of power in rethinking domination and
resistance (18). We believe that this capacity itself has generative
transformational potential to influence the education of individuals and their
social formations through the creation of cultures of enquiry (19). By
explicating the processes involved we are able to demonstrate to others that
these processes are available to all, so that they also can access the meanings
they and others give to their lives. The narratives they can then produce, as
they account for their practical enquiries, contain further transformative
potential for the generation of new theories of education and social
transformation (20, 21, 22, 23). We are claiming that the significance of our
work lies in our capacity to explicate the ever-emergent processes of practical
and theoretical enquiry that enable the realisation of values that can
contribute to human wellbeing through social transformation.
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