(2016). Women and Education: Qualifications, Skills and Technology. Women in Canada: A Gender-Based Statistical Report. Statistics Canada Canada's knowledge-based economy–especially the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)–continues to grow. Related changes in the economy, including shifts to globalized markets and an emphasis on innovation and technology, all mean that education is more and more an integral component of economic and social well-being. At the same time, women in Canada have become increasingly well-educated and today represent a larger share of the labour market than they have ever represented previously. However, women continue to have fewer apprenticeship or trades certificates as well as STEM university degrees than their male counterparts. The trajectory of women's education and career path can be understood through the lens of a 'pipeline' metaphor. Researchers have used this perspective to talk about women in STEM, noting that there are 'leaks' in the pipeline in the earliest years of schooling right through to employment with many women either studying in non-STEM… [PDF]
(2013). Learning to Attend and Observe: Parent-Child Meaning Making in the Natural World. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, Northwestern University. Observation is a traditional form of learning and a scientific practice, and as such it plays a significant role in teaching and learning both inside and outside of schools. Recently, educational researchers and philosophers have called attention to the role of observation in scientific knowledge building (Brayboy & Castagno, 2008; Cajete, 2000; Datson & Lunbeck, 2011; Eberbach, 2009; Eberbach & Crowley, 2009; Kawagley, 2006; Norris, 1985; Smith & Reiser, 2005). These scholars have foregrounded the complexity of observation, particularly as it applies to inquiry practices in those domains which are heavily reliant on observation (Eberbach & Crowley, 2009; Maltese, Balliet, & Riggs, 2013; Smith & Reiser, 2005). My dissertation research examines how families with young children engage in the coordinated activity of observation during forest walks. I focus on the ways in which attentional practices support observational inquiry among parents and children… [Direct]
(2013). The Use of Rainfall Forecasts as a Decision Guide for Small-Scale Farming in Limpopo Province, South Africa. Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension, v19 n2 p133-145. Purpose: New innovative ways of communicating agrometeorological information are needed to help farmers, especially subsistence/small-scale farmers, to cope with the high climate variability experienced in most parts of southern Africa. Design/methodology/approach: The article introduces an early warning system for farmers. It utilizes short messaging system (SMS) to convey weather information and basic agronomic advice to 12 small-scale farmers in Makhado Municipality, Limpopo Province, South Africa. This case study demonstrates the usefulness of incorporating weather information on day-to-day farm management activities. Coded rainfall forecasts for light (0-5mm), medium (5-20mm) and heavy rainfall (greater than 20mm) were distributed three times a week to individual farmers and extension officers. Accompanying the forecasts were possible agricultural activities for the week. Findings: Extensive training of the farmers and extension officers is a pre-requisite for full comprehension… [Direct]
(2015). Transforming Teacher Education Thinking: Complexity and Relational Ways of Knowing. Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity and Education, v13 n2 p26-48. In order for teacher education programs to act as significant scaffolds in supporting new teachers to become informed, creative and innovative members of a highly complex and valuable profession, we need to re-imagine ways in which teacher education programs operate. We need to re-imagine how courses are conceptualized and connected, how learning is shared and how knowledge, not just "professional", but embedded knowledge in authentic contexts of teaching and learning is understood, shaped and re-applied. Drawing on our collective case study of instructors' lived experience of a locally developed program in secondary teacher education called Transformative University of Victoria (TRUVIC), we offer a relational approach to knowing as an alternative to more mechanistic explanations that limit teacher growth and development. To ground our interpretation, we draw on complexity as a theory of change and emergence that supports learning as distributed, relational, adaptive and… [PDF]
(2015). Flips and Flops: A New Approach to a Traditional Law Course. Journal of Legal Studies Education, v32 n2 p255-286 Sum. In this article, the authors describe how they tried a new approach to the traditional undergraduate law course that can change the daily classroom experience into one that both students and professor anticipate and enjoy and can move the students from passive to active learning: flipping the class for the Legal Environment of Business course. The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) accreditation standards on learning and teaching adopted in 2013 include the requirements that "students engage in experiential and active learning designed to improve skills and the application of knowledge in practice" and that there be "high levels of interaction between and among learners, as well as between and among teachers and learners." The flipped law course meets these expectations by including discussion of current events, classroom participation by the students, application of legal principles to business problems through group exercises, student… [Direct]
(2016). We Come to Form Ourselves Bit by Bit: Educating for Citizenship in Post-Conflict Guatemala. American Educational Research Journal, v53 n3 p639-672 Jun. Over the past several decades, the implementation of democratic citizenship education has become a common prescription for the civic reconstruction of post-conflict societies. Across the globe, educational changes are seen as fundamental to the creation of peaceful, tolerant, and democratic civic identities, the key to "social reconstruction, a better future, and a lasting peace." Drawing on qualitative data from varied schools in postwar Guatemala, this article illustrates a critical dilemma in post-conflict civic education: the difficulties of engaging directly with past and present injustice while moving toward a shared national identity. Global models of democratic, multicultural, and human rights education alone are inadequate for creating a new sense of citizenship in a country in which young people's sense of belonging and their interpretations of the past are deeply connected to how their communities are positioned within a profoundly inequitable power structure…. [Direct]
(2016). Supporting Success: Aboriginal Students in Higher Education. Canadian Journal of Higher Education, v46 n2 p206-224. For most Aboriginal students in Canada, the term "success" in postsecondary education is more complicated than the mainstream notions of higher socioeconomic status and career advancement. Historically, "success" for Aboriginal peoples in postsecondary education was linked to issues of assimilation, since to be successful meant Aboriginal students had to completely adapt to the mainstream values and behaviours of the postsecondary institutions. Today, higher education is recognized as an important tool for capacity building and assisting Aboriginal communities to achieve their goals of self-determination and self-government. This paper presents some of the findings of a qualitative study conducted in a midsized Canadian postsecondary institution. Findings from the study suggest that if Canadian postsecondary institutions are committed to retaining Aboriginal students, these institutions need to better understand how to create positive and supportive relationships… [PDF]
(2015). A Profile of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Higher Education Student Population. Australian Universities' Review, v57 n2 p17-30. This paper brings together recent statistics relating to the participation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in higher education. A number of key statistical realities relating to their enrolment into, retention during, and completion of, their university courses are depicted. Foremost among these realities is that despite initiatives over recent years to redress their under-representation, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students' participation in higher education remains significantly below the population parity rate. This paper also warns about the need to exercise care about definitions, sources, measurement, collection, interpretation and analysis of data in the higher education field relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It concludes that successful transitions to university involve not just success in enrolling more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, but in improving their retention and completion rates, and moreover, the… [PDF]
(2014). Negotiating Knowledges Abroad: Non-Western Students and the Global Mobility of Knowledge. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, v44 n6 p895-915. Taking the Institute for Housing Studies in Rotterdam as a case study, this paper aims to theorise the ways non-Western, international students construct and negotiate knowledges in Western institutions of higher education. It describes the types of knowledges these students identify as characteristic of their learning abroad, distinguishing between the curriculum, knowledge of cultural Others and "critical thinking," and the strategies of incorporation, avoidance and resistance with which students negotiate these knowledges. These knowledges, if contested, are then theorised to facilitate these students' entry into, and mobility within, globally dispersed epistemic communities…. [Direct]
(2014). Considering Ecological M√©tissage: To Blend or Not to Blend?. Journal of Experiential Education, v37 n4 p351-366 Dec. This article reports on a study that examined the ecological identities and philosophies of Canadian experiential environmental educators who incorporate Western and Indigenous traditions into their pedagogical praxis. Guided by the overarching question, "Can Western and Indigenous knowledge of the natural world be blended theoretically and in practice?" notable findings include the clarification of the relationship between Western and Indigenous knowledge and philosophies of Nature as one with the potential for bricolage (integration) but not absolute m√©tissage (blending) unless Western perspectives other than science, such as deep ecology and bioregionalism, are also considered…. [Direct]
(2014). "Kahua A'o"–A Learning Foundation: Using Hawaiian Language Newspaper Articles for Earth Science Professional Development. Journal of Geoscience Education, v62 n2 p217-226 May. "Kahua A'o," a National Science Foundation Opportunities for Enhancing Diversity in the Geosciences project, seeks to prepare educators to address issues of underrepresentation of Native Hawaiian students in Earth and Space Science (ESS) and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. An interdisciplinary team provides culturally grounded, place and standards-based curricula, and professional development (PD), drawing on 4,000-plus weather- and geology-related, Hawaiian-language newspaper articles that convey the importance of ecological knowledge to identity, social status, and sustainability. The project expands Hawaiian resources for science educators and scientists, supports revitalization of an endangered language, and presents original research correlating articles on drought and rains with 19th century El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events. Professional development with two cohorts of educators finds interest in studying local phenomena,… [PDF] [Direct]
(2014). NSF-OEDG Manoomin Science Camp Project: A Model for Engaging American Indian Students in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Journal of Geoscience Education, v62 n2 p227-243 May. The Manoomin "wild rice" Science Camp program, a partnership between the University of Minnesota, the Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College, and the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa is an example of how a community-based participatory research project can become the catalyst for STEM learning for an entire community, providing effective learning opportunities for grades 5-12 and undergraduate students, elementary and secondary school teachers, and scientists from the reservation, tribal college, and university. Focusing the research on a resource (wild rice) that has important economic, cultural and spiritual meaning for a community, we promote place-based education and support the development of strong science/teacher/community partnerships. Key components of this approach are the Circle of Learning, a conceptual framework that emphasizes trust- and relationship-building between researchers, teachers, students, and American Indian community members, and the Seven… [PDF]
(2014). "Urban-Rural" Dynamics and Indigenous Urbanization: The Case of Inuit Language Use in Ottawa. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, v13 n4 p236-253. The establishment of cities in Canada has played a pivotal role in the displacement, dispossession, and marginalization of Indigenous peoples. Yet, more than half of the Indigenous population now resides in cities, and urbanization continues to increase. This paper addresses a specific aspect of Inuit mobility–namely, migration and the dynamic use of Inuit language and knowledge in the city of Ottawa. Drawing on community-based participatory research in collaboration with an Ottawa Inuit literacy centre, we investigate a range of Inuit-led educational practices that emerged from collaborative work with a group of Inuit women. Suggested activities drew on semiotic resources–including objects and language–that involved retracing the migrational trajectories of Inuit between cities and between nonurban communities, particularly those in their Arctic "homelands." Such practices appear to cut across the "urban-rural divide," particularly since cities were rarely… [Direct]
(2011). Intense Dreaming: Theories, Narratives, and Our Search for Home. American Indian Quarterly, v35 n3 p313-333 Sum. American Indian studies claimed a space to interrogate Western disciplinary epistemologies utilizing Indigenous ways of \knowing\. This epistemological struggle has, not surprisingly, been that: a struggle. As the author writes in 2010, people understand that their continuing desire to bring Indigenous community-based ways of knowing into dialogue with Western research paradigms is fraught with difficulty. Western universities often resist the oral knowledge and language production of the communities, and, as Jace Weaver once pointed out, Western academic discourse continues to monopolize the conversations. In this essay the author revisits the once-urgent demand within Indigenism to decolonialize people's minds, the demand by Indigenous scholars to reaffirm, construct, and act from Indigenous subjectivities. It is an increasingly critical issue that haunts the halls of American Indian and Indigenous studies. Thus, the author looks at the political stakes and epistemological issues… [Direct]
(2013). Involvement in Traditional Cultural Practices and American Indian Children's Incidental Recall of a Folktale. Developmental Psychology, v49 n3 p568-578 Mar. This study examined incidental recall of a folktale told to 91 Tohono O'odham American Indian children (average age 9 years) who either were directly addressed or had the opportunity to overhear the telling of the folktale. Learning from surrounding incidental events contrasts with learning through direct instruction common in Western schooling, which was familiar to all the children and their families. We hypothesized that Tohono O'odham children who have greater cultural engagement in traditional Tohono O'odham practices (Tohono O'odham language, activities, and storytelling) would have greater incidental recall of the story, especially in the overhearing condition, due to the emphasis on learning through listening to others in this community. Cultural engagement significantly predicted incidental story recall for both overhearing children and those who were directly told the story. Further, cultural engagement explained additional variance in the number of story events recalled in… [Direct]