(2022). The Palgrave Handbook of Learning for Transformation. Palgrave Macmillan This handbook offers an expanded discourse on transformative learning by making the turn into new passageways to explore the phenomenon of transformation. It curates diverse discourses, knowledges and practices of transformation, in ways that both includes and departs from the adult learning mainstay of transformative learning and adult education. The purpose of this handbook is not to resolve or unify a theory of transformation and all the disciplinary contributions that clearly promote a living concept of transformation. Instead, the intent is to catalyze a more complex and deeper inquiry into the "Why of transformation." Each discipline, culture, ethics and practice has its own specialized care and reasons for paying attention to transformation. How can scholars, practitioners, and active members of discourses on transformative learning make a difference? How can they foster and create conditions that allow us to move on to other, unaddressed or understudied questions?… [Direct]
(2022). Early Language Learning in Context: A Critical Socioeducational Perspective. Multilingual Matters This book critically analyses early school foreign language teaching policy and practice, foregrounding the influence of the socioeducational and cultural context on how policies are implemented and assessing the factors which either promote or constrain their effectiveness. It focuses on four Asian contexts — Malaysia, South Korea, Sri Lanka and Thailand — while providing a discussion of policy and practice in Canada and Finland as a comparison. Concentrating on the state school sector, it criticises the worldwide trend for a focus on English as the principal or only foreign language taught in primary schools, founded on a rationale that widespread proficiency in English is important for future national success in a globalised economy. It maintains that the economic rationale is not only largely unfounded and irrelevant to the language learning experiences of young children but also that the focus on English exacerbates system inequalities rather than contributing to their… [Direct]
(2015). Designing an Australian Indigenous Studies Curriculum for the Twenty-First Century: Nakata's "Cultural Interface", Standpoints and Working beyond Binaries. Higher Education Research and Development, v34 n2 p270-283. We discuss the recent reworking of Murdoch University's Australian Indigenous Studies major. For the discipline to realise its charter of decolonising knowledges about Indigenous peoples, it is necessary to move Indigenous Studies beyond the standard reversalist and unsustainable tropes that valorise romanticised notions of Indigeneity and Indigenous knowledges and pedagogies over those of a demonised "western" other. Drawing on Martin Nakata's contribution to scholarship on the future of Indigenous Studies, we argue that his problematisation of the cultural interface provides a discipline-based rationale for working beyond the Indigenous-western binary, and that his notion of standpoints encourages the ongoing production of diverse, historically and politically informed scholarship, while preparing students to enter the workforce with a contemporary, ethically sophisticated grasp of Indigenous and non-Indigenous relations, which is consistent with the decolonial goals of… [Direct]
(2018). Indigenous Making and Sharing: Claywork in an Indigenous STEAM Program. Equity & Excellence in Education, v51 n1 p7-20. In this article we expand on ideas of making and maker spaces to develop Indigenous making and sharing. We draw from an ArtScience participatory design project that involved Indigenous youth, families, community artists, and scientists in a summer Indigenous STEAM program designed to cultivate social and ecologically just nature-culture relations grounded in Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and making. In this article we focus specifically on clay making and the ways in which onto-epistemic heterogeneity can be engaged to create transformative maker spaces. We present findings from an analysis of the pedagogies of walking, observing and talking lands and waters to outline principles of Indigenous making and sharing in youth-based learning environments…. [Direct]
(2021). Revisiting Piaget, His Contribution to South African Early Childhood Education. Early Child Development and Care, v191 n7-8 p1002-1012. The importance of a Piagetian approach is recognized in South African early childhood educational practices and teacher training, but the reality of the implementation of teaching and learning in the domain of early years opposes his philosophy in many ways. Our Early Childhood Education policies strongly advocate a Piagetian approach such as the emphasis on cognitive development, play-based learning, placing the child at the centre of learning and recognizing the holistic child. However, South African schools are contextually challenged with a disconnect between teacher training, policy and practice…. [Direct]
(2021). Decolonising the Curriculum beyond the Surge: Conceptualisation, Positionality and Conduct. London Review of Education, v19 n1. In recent years, there has been increased interest in, and work towards, decolonising the curriculum in higher education institutions in the UK. There are various initiatives to review university syllabuses and identify alternative literature. However, there is an increasing risk of turning 'decolonisation' into a buzz term tied to a trend. We fear that decolonisation within academia is becoming an empty term, diluted and depoliticised, allowing for superficial representations that fail to address racial, political and socio-economic intersectionalities. In this article, we examine several initiatives to decolonise the curriculum with a focus on the field of education as a discipline and medium. Based on our analysis, we engage with three main themes: conceptualisation, positionality and conduct. The article concludes that decolonisation cannot happen in a vacuum, or as an aim disconnected from the rest of the structure of the university, which leads to diluting a wider movement and… [PDF] [Direct]
(2021). S√°mi Sports and Outdoor Life at the Indigenous Riddu Riddu Festival. Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning, v21 n4 p357-370. The indigenous Riddu Riddu Festival, organized yearly in the village of Olm√°iv√°ggi/ Manndalen (S√°pmi/Norway), presents the cultures of S√°mi people and indigenous peoples across the world. A study of the activities offered at Riddu Riddu over an eleven-year period (2009-2019) carried out. Through fieldwork (forty-six in-depth interviews, participant observations and document analysis), I contemplated how sports, physical and outdoor activities included in the festival create indigenous people's identities and cultural understanding. S√°mi sports and other indigenous sports and outdoor life are crucial parts of the festival, especially at the Children's Festival: M√°n√°idfestiv√°la. The activities represent different ethnicities and seem to create sustained ties between persons, networks and organizations and to build identities and bridges between participants. Taking part in festival activities claimed to be crucial symbolic capital, or poly cultural capital, in expressing indigeneity or… [Direct]
(2023). Balanda Talk: My Ideological Becoming as an English Literacy Teacher of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse First Nations Australian Students. Changing English: Studies in Culture and Education, v30 n3 p183-194. Teaching English literacy in First Nations Australian communities is bound up with the policy aim of improving the social and economic outcomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the desire to acknowledge, recognise and respect their unique cultural identities, languages and knowledges. But for English literacy teachers working in these communities, realising these aims is not so straightforward, and they find themselves situated at the nexus of conflicting ideas about education and justice for their students. In this essay, I reveal the ideological work of English and literacy teaching through self-dialogue captured in my research journal over the 2019 school year in a school with a large First Nations Australian student population in the Northern Territory. The essay unfolds chronologically as I narrate selected excerpts from my journal to provide an analytical account of the ideological tensions I experienced in my praxis as an English literacy teacher…. [Direct]
(2017). "A Space for You to Be Who You Are": An Ethnographic Portrait of Reterritorializing Indigenous Student Identities. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, v38 n3 p328-341. This article explores the discourse practices of an Indigenous, community-based charter school and its efforts to create space for Indigenous both/and identities across rural-urban divides. The ethnographic portrait of Urban Native Middle School (UNMS) analyzes the discourse of making "a space for you", which brings together rural and urban youth to braid binary constructs such as Indigenous and western knowledge, into a discourse of Indigenous persistence constraining contexts of schooling. We use the concept of "reterritorialization" to discuss the significance of UNMS's community effort to create a transformative space and place of educational opportunity with youth. The local efforts of this small community to reterritorialize schooling were ultimately weakened under the one-size-fits-all accountability metrics of No Child Left Behind policy. This ethnographic analysis "talks back" to static definitions of identity, space and learning outcomes which… [Direct]
(2019). Sensing Ecologically through Kin and Stones. International Journal of Early Childhood Environmental Education, v7 n1 p8-25 Fall. This paper draws on a research study that builds on a long and rich history of research in environmental education focusing on the value of learning through everyday experiences with the more than human. This study specially focused on very young children's experiences of ecologies and explored the unique opportunities sensorially rich bodily interactions with nonhuman entities provided. Drawing on postqualitative inquiry, using visual arts, narrative and walking methodologies, Karen and Sarah Jane are attentive in this work to the very subtle encounters and sensitivities of how child bodies move with and through places. By employing a number of nontraditional formats, the two researchers share sensorial ecological encounters as a form of child-worlding; bodies attune to the ongoing and the everyday presented as images, stories and prose. As an approach to diffractive analysis, they adopt a relational ontology as a means for thinking with the concepts of kin and stones. Sensing… [PDF]
(2019). De-Westernizing African Journalism Curriculum through Glocalization and Hybridization. Journalism and Mass Communication Educator, v74 n4 p452-467 Dec. Over several decades, scholars have questioned the multilateralism of journalism education on the grounds that journalism education adopts a dominant paradigm that renders it predominantly Western. The argument, however, is polarized; on one hand, some scholars have proposed a de-Westernization of journalism education, on the other hand, a dissenting opinion argues that global journalism curriculum is multilateral. Despite several attempts by scholars and international organizations, specifically, the UNESCO, through the International Programme for Development of Communication (IPDC), to de-Westernize journalism curriculum, remnants of the dominant paradigm still persist. I concede that striking attempts have been made to de-Westernize and glocalize journalism curriculum; therefore, my central argument hinges on the thesis that instead of resisting and discarding the UNESCO model, and other Western influences, reformation and adaptation through "glocalization" and… [Direct]
(2020). The Motivation of Learning Art & Culture among Students in Indonesia. Cogent Education, v7 n1 Article 1809770. This research investigated the effect of learning facilities and learning methods of Art and Culture teachers towards students' learning motivation at Junior High School. Students' low interest in learning Art and Culture is frequently found in Indonesia by stigma, saying that Art and Culture are easier compared to applied sciences. This research becomes important because Art and Culture Learning is the result of work and creativity based on the norms and behavior of the society in Indonesia, which plays roles in preserving the cultural heritage of Indonesia through Art and Culture wisdom. The analysis shows that improvement in learning facilities has a positive effect on motivation improvement in learning Art and Culture. The selection of the right method will make the learning process more conducive and easier to be understood by the students. Learning facilities and learning methods positive and significant effect on students' motivation in learning Art and Culture. Furthermore,… [Direct]
(2020). "Salir Adelante": Collaboratively Developing Culturally Grounded Curriculum with Marginalized Communities. American Journal of Education, v126 n2 p195-230 Feb. In this article we discuss a collaborative research project meant to ground community members' voices in curriculum design. We argue that performing collaborative research with students and parents can better inform curriculum design decisions, particularly for communities whose identities, knowledge(s), and ways of being have been historically marginalized. Building from the culturally responsive curriculum literature, we have developed a culturally grounded curriculum development approach. We illustrate the approach through discussing a case of its development and implementation with an educational nongovernmental organization (NGO) that provides access to secondary school for Quechua (Indigenous) young women in Peru. This article reflexively reports the process of the NGO's collaborative inquiry project to cocreate meaningful educational opportunities with the students and parents. We then discuss dilemmas of interpretation that arose when incorporating community voices into… [Direct]
(2024). Caring for Autism in Ghana: Exploring the Psychological Impact and Coping Strategies of Caregivers. Cogent Education, v11 n1 Article 2374686. This study explores the psychosocial impacts and coping strategies caregivers face while caring for children with autism. The study employed a qualitative method to analyze the data collected through semi-structured interviews. Interviews were conducted with 20 purposively selected informants at PMLCH. The data were transcribed and analyzed thematically, focusing on the study objectives. The findings indicate that caregivers who live with an autistic child experience significant psychological stress as well as mental and physical health issues. The findings further revealed that the psychological impact of caregivers living with a child with autism includes psychological and emotional stress, financial constraints, a lack of professional guidance, limited access to support services, cultural beliefs and practices, and stigma and social isolation. Meanwhile, caregivers use religious and socio-cultural support, educational programs, self-efficacy, advocacy and awareness, traditional… [Direct]
(2024). Student and Supervisor Experiences of Health Student Service Learning Placements in Rural Communities. International Journal of Work-Integrated Learning, v25 n4 p635-647. Rural health work-integrated learning exposes students to the unique features of rural professional practice and provides opportunities to improve students' work-readiness. Service learning placements delivered in rural settings seek to address the dual goals of student learning and meeting community identified needs. This research aimed to evaluate the experiences of students and supervisors who were involved in service learning placements in various rural and regional communities across a range of educational and health settings. Thirty-eight participants completed an online survey, reporting high levels of satisfaction with this placement format. Students experienced a strong sense of belonging within the host organisation, felt welcomed, and engaged in organizational and community activities. Supervisors universally reported feeling well supported. Ongoing attention to supervisory confidence, particularly when supervisors are unfamiliar with the service learning placement format… [PDF]