Conscientisation Through Shared Authorship: A Cooperative Inquiry on Transformative Learning in Participatory Filmmaking

Film has great potential to initiate social learning processes. Therefore, working with film is suitable as a teaching format that enables co-production of knowledge and transformative learning. Through participatory filmmaking, students can acquire transdisciplinary competencies, which are necessary for sustainability transformations. We discuss how transdisciplinary competences can be acquired by building on transformative teaching by co-producing social learning videos.Dealing with complex societal problems requires transdisciplinary approaches and competencies. Inspired by debates on transformative teaching and participatory filmmaking, we show how we used the social learning video method to teach transdisciplinary competencies in a university setting. Using the design of future railway stations as an example, students interacted with external practice partners in real-world problem situations. As part of this process, they became aware of their own professional perspectives and critically reflected on the perspectives of their practice partners and the differences in their understanding of sustainability. In addition, they developed numerous transdisciplinary competences, such as defining a problem together, conducting group discussions and interviews, mediating among different viewpoints, allowing a common language to develop, and triggering “AHA!” moments in joint film screenings. As part of transdisciplinary and transformative teaching, it is important to provide access to external practice partners and working environments, enable students to engage and reflect, and provide nurturing and challenging framework conditions.

ABSTRACTReflective dialogue as a job-embedded teacher professional learning activity has still been an unexplored area. Little is known about what factors affect its emergence. This study addresses this gap by examining the effect of the frequency of occurrence of particular meeting agendas on the emergence of reflective dialogue in teacher communities as well as what conditions are conducive to promote reflective dialogue. Using a mixed methods research design, first, we created a single-level multiple-indicators multiple-causes model. Through a focus group interview we delved deep into reflective dialogue. In the quantitative part, we found that the conversations on the goals of the school, curriculum, and student learning contributed to the evolution of reflective dialogue among teachers as these topics are more important. As teachers focus more on discussing these three topics, they begin reflecting on their practice through a collaborative dialogue. The follow-up qualitative study revealed that there are more topics that might promote reflective dialogue. Personal and institutional conditions have been revealed as being necessary for creating culture of reflective dialogue. For school leaders, practical solutions to promote reflective dialogue were provided. For researchers, future research directions were suggested to obtain a fuller picture of reflective dialogue across schools.

This paper introduces the practice and theoretical framework for a new generative learning environment that creates shareable electronic artefacts from reflective dialogue across a whole group. These artefacts are quantitative and qualitative representations of student experience. By grouping these student-generated products new measures of student experience are created that inform both research and development. This approach created by the author is called Shared Thinking. This research is an interdisciplinary PhD study, funded by the Kelvin Smith scholarship, at the University of Glasgow. The PhD is based in the Faculty of Education with supervision shared with Psychology and Computing Science. Collating the different ideas discussed here, this study involves the use of electronic voting systems (EVS) technology in the face to face classroom; the use of a whole-group protocol (specifically a snowball or pyramid group-discussion technique); and the use of voting to generate an electronic shareable synthesis that can function as a mediating artefact (Anderson et al., 2006; Conole, 2008). The snowball group-discussion technique used here works by sharing the individual perspective, firstly by inviting each person to write down their view. Individuals then share their ideas within and between small groups until the whole class perspective is generated. This protocol works as a thinking routine much in the same way as Exploratory Talk (Wegerif, 2009). The mix of the snowball technique and the use of technology equates to a dialogical space (Mercer, 2000). However, the intention to collaboratively generate a whole-group perspective, as a synthesis of reflective conversations, changes things. This intention creates a learning disposition of collective curiosity and cooperative inquiry (Heron & Reason, 2006). Researchers and subjects work together to produce visible solutions to authentic problems. This learning disposition and the co-construction of a mediating artefact together transform the possibilities for learning, dialogue and participation. The 'dialogical space' becomes a 'generative environment' (Grabinger, 2000) that produces a mediating electronic synthesis for participants and vicarious learners (McKendree, Lee, Dineen & Mayes, 1998). This is participation-reification as a process and product with all the consequent implications for knowledge-building and knowledge-management (Wenger, 1998). I have called this new generative environment and socio-cultural practice, Shared Thinking. This environment contains a space, a structure, a reflective dialogue, a disposition, a purpose and a shareable product. This, in turn, informs the development of a shared understanding of the social, cognitive and developmental context.

This study explored collaborative data-led reflective dialogues of transnational PSTs by using Multimodal Conversation Analysis. The study draws on the screen recordings of a Virtual Exchange (VE) project (n=72), which involves collaborative online task design, implementation of tasks by L2 students, and reflection on students’ performance and their experience of the VE project. The close examination of the data showed that through collaborative reflective dialogues, PSTs (i) raised awareness of their practice and generated knowledge; (ii) made a connection between theory and practice; (iii) became more aware of their epistemic stance; (iv) identified and described a problem and found solutions to these problems (Farrell, 2015). Therefore, micro-moments of learning and understanding were created in-an- through reflection and it was revealed explicitly through reference to lack of knowledge in the past. This study has implications for teacher education programs, which should encourage reflective dialogues of transnational PSTs to create opportunities for teacher learning.

This paper presents the results of a participatory research project undertaken with Hungarian MSc students specializing in Human Resource Management and Development about the employment of people with disabilities. The unemployment rate for people with disabilities is very high in Hungary and HR practitioners have a key role in maintaining or reducing barriers to their employment. Following the tradition of critical pedagogy, the aim of the research project was twofold. Firstly, we aimed to reveal the mental patterns, attitudes and beliefs of future HR practitioners to the employment of people with disabilities (which might be root causes of domination, discrimination or exploitation). Secondly, through using a radical methodological approach – cooperative inquiry – the researchers wished to emancipate students and challenge their frozen beliefs about disability as well as the positivist value system which usually dominates business education. The main result of the research project was to challenge the medical approach to disability which formerly dominated the belief systems of our student co-researchers, thereby engendering a more critical worldview.

Seven adult students in a full-time, online master's degree program in human and organizational transformation at the California Institute of Integral Studies explored the question, “What transformative learning is occurring in my life right now that this online program has stimulated or supported?” A core focus of the program was transformative learning, a process that assists in widening frames of reference and transforming worldviews. Although initially choosing cooperative inquiry as the research methodology, what ultimately emerged was a multidimensional peer inquiry experience more closely fitting the definition of collaborative inquiry that drew heavily on cooperative inquiry and extended epistemology. The students engaged their inquiry question in four action and reflection cycles over 3 months, identifying key individual and group capacities and dynamics that were deep, connected, and transformative.

Reflective dialogue is one of the strategies in reflection-in-action by mature professionals in complex, problematic contexts. This chapter examines the collaborative process of a team of six teacher educators to generate a teaching plan for a workshop on narrative action research through reflective dialogue, the characteristics, and the conditions of collaborative reflective dialogue. It is found that the reflective dialogue of the team embodies typical reframing of the problem and reverification of the action, while exhibiting its own features regarding its repertoire, appreciation system, overarching theory, and role framing. Specifically, the team attends to real and complex problems that occur in the process of their deep inquiry and follows a spiral cycle for the progress of relevant topics with strong support from the team leader who embodies an inspirational role. The conditions that enable the team to carry on an effective reflective dialogue include: a team of teacher educators from different organizations with a joint commitment to their education goals, and a safe and open atmosphere for deep inquiry and conflict resolution.KeywordsTeacher collaborationReflective dialogueTeam teaching

Among possible adult learning theories, transformative learning emerged in the 1990’s with the aim to provide learners an educational experience consistent with the purpose of changing perspectives. Transformational learning theory provides the opportunity to learn, confront, engage and reflect on the possibility of learning through changes in perspective and to explore new meanings, roles, relationships and actions contained within it.Perspective transformation is, therefore, not only intended to create ownership of new knowledge, but its re-integration into new or re-configured ways of everyday living. The readiness to apply new knowledge is triggered by confronting an event, or mode of thought, that moves individuals from experiencing knowledge as a series of facts disconnected from their meaning and context into a relevant context, or one that has a different significance for the learner. New understanding requires that learners assess the meanings behind words, the coherence, truth and appropriateness of what is being communicated as well as the truthfulness, credibility and authenticity of the presenter. Unlike focusing only on instrumental learning in which logical problem solving and inquiry dominate, transformative learning entails the use of metaphor, analogies and reflective dialogue so that learners revise their interpretations of knowledge. In these ways transformative learning might help healthcare providers to change their frame of reference and perceptions to accommodate new and different ways of learning and engaging within a multidisciplinary clinical team.

In this article, seven participants from nursing, social work, accounting, fine arts, bioscience, and learning support disciplines share insights gained through participation in a transdisciplinary cooperative inquiry research group aimed at developing excellence in teaching. This Cooperative Inquiry for Reflection and Collaboration on Learning Effectiveness (CIRCLE) group promoted transformation of individual participants’ teaching as well as development of interdepartmental collaboration and camaraderie within the context of contemporary, performance-based academic environments. Collaborative, pedagogical, action research was undertaken through cooperative inquiry (CI) to explore transformative learning activities that increased teachers’ and students’ engagement while covering prescribed learning outcomes using creative approaches. The results are presented in a reflexive, collaborative autoethnography through seven authentic teacher stories. Reflections on the process and the impact of being in the research group provide evidence of the potential transdisciplinary, CI research groups offer to enhance research and teaching outcomes in higher education. These findings are significant internationally in light of the necessity to meet the increasing expectations of all stakeholders in the global tertiary education sector.

The primary objective of this autoethnographic study is to investigate how lecturers’ attempts to use augmented reality (AR) in the vocational educational context contribute to their transformative learning (TL) journey. The first author of this paper, referred to using the pronoun ‘her/she’, is a vocational lecturer pursuing her doctoral degree in technology-enhanced learning (TEL), has examined the evolution of her pedagogical perspectives by critically analysing and reflecting on her experiences learning and adopting AR technology in her anatomy classrooms. She also explored and unpacked her educational experiences in the past and the social and cultural contexts in which they occurred to gain deeper insight into her previous and current beliefs about TEL. Her autoethnographic writing in this paper shares her struggles and growth, underscoring the significance of scaffolding and professional networked learning opportunities in nurturing transformative learning in lecturers. In collaboration with the second author, her doctoral supervisor, the first author has drawn more meaningful and robust findings from collecting and comparing other lecturers’ experiences implementing AR in similar pedagogical situations. The authors’ discussion sheds light on the often obscure process of how educational professionals challenge and change their long-held pedagogical perspectives on the usefulness of technology for their teaching and student learning. The paper also reveals the cognitive, emotional, and social dimensions of professional learning and highlights the role of professional networks in facilitating transformative learning experiences. The findings, derived from personal reflective narratives, self and member-checking interviews, and TL analysis, suggest that a strong sense of ownership, extensive classroom experiences, and commitment to critical reflection played crucial roles in supporting the learning journey. However, this experience transcended the mere acquisition of new knowledge; the study depicts a transformative journey wherein theory recognised a fundamental shift in perception through instrumental learning, emphasising the evaluation of cause-and-effect relationships via critical reflection of actions. Therefore, within the realm of TL, this study may contribute to theory by asserting that critical reflection not only serves as a medium for learning but also functions as a tool for shaping the process of learning itself. The dissemination of such pivotal insights becomes imperative for educators, empowering them to make judicious and well-informed decisions, thereby fortifying their preparedness for a transformative journey that, if embarked on without adequate support, may prove elusive.

The objective of this research is to explore how Henry Giroux’s theory of critical pedagogy can be applied to Islamic history education in order to enhance critical thinking, social awareness, and transformative learning. The study adopts Giroux’s theoretical framework, which includes ontological, epistemological, and axiological dimensions emphasizing student agency, dialogical learning, and ethical engagement. Using a qualitative literature study as the research method, this paper analyzes scholarly works on critical pedagogy and Islamic education to construct a contextual learning model for undergraduate Islamic history courses. The results demonstrate that traditional approaches to Islamic history often emphasize memorization over critical engagement, thereby limiting students' ability to relate historical narratives to contemporary social realities. By applying Giroux’s critical pedagogy, the study proposes a learning design that includes material and strategy innovations, diverse media tools, and formative assessments focused on critical dialogue and social relevance. The implications of this research suggest that adopting critical pedagogy in Islamic history education can contribute to the development of socially conscious, ethically responsible, and critically aware learners. The originality of this work lies in bridging Western critical pedagogy with Islamic educational objectives, offering a novel curriculum design that aligns with both transformative learning principles and the moral mission of Islamic education

Preface: Public and Its Possibilities Introduction: Liberalism and the Civic Strand in the American Past Civic Aspirations and Liberal Values An Urban Thesis Part I. Civic Aspirations and Market Development in a Long Age of Revolution 1.Democratizing the Republican Ideal of Citizenship: Virtue, Interests, and the Citizen-Proprietor in the Revolutionary Era Seaport Cities: Crucibles of Market and Public People Out of Doors and the Imperial Crisis A More Democratic Public: Consumer Boycotts Politicize the Household Threat of Enslavement and the Need for Virtue: Unifying Myth of the American Revolution Virtue and Vice in an Overheated Market Redeeming the Revolution: Virtues or Mechanisms? Citizen-Proprietors and the Democratization of Competence Revolutionary Legacies, Democratic Futures 2. Creating Citizens in a Commercial Republic: Market 33 Transformation and the Free Labor Ideal, 1812-1873 Origins of the Free Labor Ideal Market Revolution and the Public Purpose Labor Politics in the Jacksonian City: Unjust Government and a Conspiracy to Enslave A Crippled Democracy: Jacksonian Fears and Whig Paternalism Free Labor Ideology and the Transformation of Northern Whiggery Positive Liberty: Turning Slaves into Citizens Limits of Radical Republicanism 3. Short, Strange Career of Laissez-Faire: Liberal Reformers and Genteel Culture in the Gilded Age Big Business and Small Politics in the Gilded Age Liberal Reformers and Genteel Culture Liberal Reformers' Encounter with the City Civic Murder: Liberal Reformers and Public Opinion This Word An Industrial Tragedy at Pullman Part II. Popular Culture, Political Culture: Building a Democratic Public 4. Democratic Public in City and Nation: Jacksonian City and the Limits of Antislavery Constructing a Public Realm In the Streets: Law and the Public Realm To the Park: Strengths and Weaknesses of the Jacksonian Public Popular Culture, Political Culture Young and Democratic Culture Republic of the Streets and Fields Astor Place Riot Fatal Flaw: Young and Negrophobia Cultural Laissez-Faire versus the Evangelical United Front Antislavery: Passion and Rationality in the Antebellum Public Lincoln's Rhetorical Revolution 5. Democratic Public Discredited: New York City Draft Riots and Urban Reconstruction, 1850-1872 The Most Radical City in America Nativism and the Erosion of Municipal Autonomy New York City Draft Riots Draconian Justice: Reconstructing New York City Spectacular Rise and Precipitous Fall of Boss Tweed Postwar Republicanism: Labor Revolt and Metropolitan Capital Retrenchment and Reform 6. Cultural Hierarchy and Good Government: Democratic Public in Eclipse Highbrow/Lowbrow and an Incompetent Citizenry Don't Get Out the Vote Municipal Counterrevolution: Dillon's Rule and the Benevolent Expert Domesticating the City Civic Vertigo: City Biological and Pathological Degeneration of Popular Politics Mob Mind, Befuddled Public Part III. Public in Progressivism and War 7. Republican Moment: Rediscovery of the Public in the Progressive Era City Beautiful and Intelligent Georgists and the City Republic Democracy as Cooperative Inquiry: Social Centers Movement Mass Media and the Socialization of Intelligence Nickel Madness or the Academy of the Working Man? National Board of Review of Motion Pictures and the Mutual Decision Rise of Hollywood and the Incorporation of Movie Culture 8. Public Goes to War but Does Not Come Back: Requiem for a Participatory Democracy War Intellectuals and New Republic War for the American Mind From Mastery to Drift Trusting the Public Too Much or Too Little? A Democrat on the Defensive Participatory Democracy and Urban Culture: From Public Opinion to Public Relations Part IV. A Democracy of Consumers 9. From Economic Democracy to Social Security: Labor Movement and the Rise of the Welfare/Warfare State Industrial Democracy, Industrial Discipline Syndicalist Moment From the New Freedom to the New Nationalism: War and the Triumph of the Corporate State Labor's War From Welfare Capitalism to Moral Capitalism Democratic Unions, Labor Party Second New Deal: Consumerist Democracy and the End of Antimonopoly From New Deal to New War: Liberals and Labor Abandon Reform Taming Labor in the Welfare/Warfare State 10. Constructing a Consumer Culture: Redirecting Leisure from Civic Engagement to Insatiable Desire Popular Demand for Leisure and the Rise of the Saloon Leisure Question and Cheap Amusements Discovery of Play Captains of Consciousness, Land of Desire Exit the Saloon, Enter the Bijou Shaping Character, Inculcating Values Incorporation of the Consumer Culture Mass Culture, Mass Media, and the Consumerization of Politics 11. Private Vision, Public Resources: Mass Suburbanization and the Decline of the City New Deal Urban Policy and the Suburban-Industrial Complex Origins of the Urban Crisis I: Eroding the Tax and Employment Base Origins of the Urban Crisis II: Homeowner Pop u lism and the Fragmentation of Metropolitan Government Central City Housing: Racial Time Bomb Dispossession: Urban Redevelopment and Urban Renewal Confronting the Reverse Welfare State: From Civil Rights to Black Power Two Societies, Separate and Unequal Suburban Secession and Farewell to the Public Realm Conclusion: Future of the City: Civic Renewal and Environmental Politics/i> Great Unfinished Tasks of American Civilization Private City, Public Crisis Visions of Fear and Hope Toward an Ecology of the City Acknowledgments Notes Index

Social science teachers use a wide variety of innovative pedagogy to support students’ cognitive, affective and psychomotor development. This explains the shift from Socratic pedagogy to the use of cartoon- critical pedagogy in social science education. Cartoons are used for explanation of difficult content in textbooks hence, motivating students to learn. Unfortunately, this innovative pedagogy is ineffectively utilized by some social science teachers in their classroom. Therefore, this paper analyses the use of cartoons in social science lessons as a critical pedagogy to enhance teaching and students’ learning outcomes. Constructivist learning theory and dual coding theory are used in the study which focused on 03 public grammar secondary schools in the Bamenda Municipality. A sample of 07 pedagogic inspectors, 375 students and 36 social science teachers were selected using convenient and simple random sampling techniques. Data for the study was collected using questionnaires and focus group discussions. The data was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The results reveal that, teachers’ use of cartoons in social science classes as a teaching device positively promoted cooperative learning, problem based learning, transformative learning and critical thinking amongst students. Furthermore, teachers’ use of cartoons in social science classes as a learning device positively improved students’ ability to understand, apply, analyse, evaluate and synthesize economics, geography and history concepts. The study concludes that, cartoon-critical pedagogy motivated teachers to become transformative intellectuals and students to become critically and socially conscious. Keywords: critical pedagogy, social science education, cartoons, teaching and learning outcomes, Bamenda Municipality DOI: 10.7176/RHSS/12-14-03 Publication date: July 31 st 2022

One of the great misconceptions about critical pedagogy, Paulo Freire’s democratic theory of education, is that transformative learning is an activity that takes place in the mind. In this paper, the authors demonstrate the significance of material context in Paulo Freire’s conceptualization of his philosophy of democratic education. By using the theories of wayfinding (a sub-division of human geography) and critical posthumanism in dialogue with Paulo Freire’s autobiographical reflections in his post-Pedagogy of the Oppressed writings, the authors illustrate how critical pedagogy involved a literal reading of the material world. By sharing vignettes from his work in Brazil, Guinea-Bissau, Porto Mont, New York we highlight the significance of the body, emotions, and individual and local history as partners in the political-pedagogical project of transformative learning. Critical pedagogy is recast as an onto-epistemological praxis in which critical consciousness is understood as a process of becoming that is made possible through the relationship between the person and their land, including all its human and non-human inhabitants.

IntroductionThis research focuses on how graduate students in a Master’s level English Language Teaching (ELT) program in Türkiye experienced transformative learning through a course on critical pedagogy (CP). Grounded in Mezirow’s transformative learning theory and Freirean principles, the study explores how engagement with the sociopolitical dimensions of language education challenged participants’ assumptions and transformed their cognitive, emotional, and relational understandings of teaching.MethodsData were collected from eight participants through weekly reflective journals structured around Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle that guides individuals to reflect systematically on their experiences and follow-up semistructured interviews. Following Braun and Clarke’s six-phase framework to thematic analysis, five overarching themes were identified that encapsulate the participants’ experiences: Confronting Disorienting Dilemmas, Shifting Perspectives (Cognitive Transformations), Navigating Emotional Journeys, Evolving Classroom Relationships, and Embracing Transformative Learning Processes.ResultsThe results revealed that participants encountered disorienting dilemmas that prompted self-examination and shifts in identity, beliefs, and pedagogical stances. While students valued dialogic learning, critical inquiry, and real-world connections, some reported discomfort when addressing controversial topics—highlighting persistent hierarchical dynamics within educational settings.DiscussionDespite these tensions, participants demonstrated growing commitment to inclusive and socially engaged teaching. This research contributes to inclusive teacher education by demonstrating how structured reflection and emotionally responsive learning environments can foster transformation. It also calls for further research on the long-term enactment of critical pedagogy in diverse institutional contexts.