Pedagogy Of Place Research Articles

Place, Land, and the Decolonization of the Settler Soul

ABSTRACTMy aim in this essay is to wonder where in the world I am now as a scholar of place and a lover of places, and to give some shape to where I have been. I begin by reflecting on how I came to discover that “place” matters—at a historical moment (the 1990s) in which academic interest in place surged. Next, I address some of the controversies and silences that surround critical pedagogies of place. Much of this discussion is inspired by diverse perspectives toward the difficult and contested work of “decolonization,” one of the primary aims of critical place study. Finally, I delve into my own uncertainties and hopes around decolonization: what I discuss here as the lifelong, generational project of cosmological homecoming—the cultivation of the soul. I hope to show that the politics of decolonization must be spacious enough for white settlers like myself to examine and cultivate our own interior worlds. Whatever its prospects, decolonization depends on human beings who know who and where they are, who and where they come from, and how to negotiate the interplay between the soul and the polis.

Examining learning in the course, “Inclusive Leadership for Sustainable Peace”

ABSTRACTThe undergraduate, introductory course, ‘Inclusive Leadership for Sustainable Peace’ aimed to cultivate sustainable peace leaders by inviting students to clarify their own core values and by examining: macro UNESCO Sustainable Development Goals and the Earth Charter; values and approaches of global sustainable peace leaders in their historic and community contexts; and local leadership in organizations committed to healthy ecosystems, society equity, and viable economies. Offered in the spring of 2017 and 2018 at a predominately white, Euro-American, and large master’s comprehensive university in the United States, the core pedagogy of the course involved a critical pedagogy of place, critical peace education for sustainability, a systems approach to leadership, and contemplative inquiry, aimed at promoting deep learning. The primary research question for this study is ‘What do students learn about themselves, others, and their ability to change the world from engaging in this course?’ This exploratory qualitative study involved 10 students. Findings indicate that participants gained personal value clarification, career clarification, and a deeper understanding of their power to make a difference. The article will contribute to the advancement of sustainable peace leadership education.

“In spite of the way the world is”

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide comparative perspectives on how educators teach issues that affect two countries with a history of governmental tensions. The investigation examines how teachers in Cuban classrooms engage in discourses on the recent developments in Cuban and US relations, including the teaching of historical and territorial issues. This research considers border pedagogy, critical border dialogism and critical border praxis as approaches for those who educate on the effects of US international policies. Ultimately, pragmatic hope offers the possibilities for an emergent third space for Cuban and US relations, including educational exchanges.Design/methodology/approachThe research took place in Cuba during an educational exchange to Cuban secondary and university educational sites. Cuban educators of pedagogy and social education engaged in dialogue and shared information on how they address US international policies during their classroom discussions. The researcher employed methodologies that followed Stake’s (2000) model for a substantive case study. Impressions, data, records and salient elements at the observed site were recorded. Transcriptions were documented for face-to-face interviews and hour-long focus group sessions. Participants also logged responses to written survey questions. The study focused on how Cuban educators taught, discussed and addressed the US international policies in classrooms.FindingsHeteroglossia, meliorism, critical cosmopolitanism, nepantla, dialogic feminism and pragmatic hope were components of the data analysis. Heteroglossia was an essential consideration throughout the study as multiple interpretations of Cuban and US interconnectedness emerged. Meliorism factored into Cuban educators’ commitments to their professions. Critical cosmopolitanism developed as educators put forth different conceptualizations of human rights and democracy. Nepantla emerged as a key aspect as indigenous and self-determined viewpoints emerged. Dialogic feminism was preeminent as patriarchy continues to exist, despite a new awareness of gender roles and gender violence. Pragmatic hope offers possibilities for a transnational community of inquiry and collaboration.Research limitations/implicationsThe most obvious limitation to this study is, as a case study, the limited scope of perception.Practical implicationsIf future relations between Cuban and the US are deemed uncertain, critical border praxis has an essential role in addressing new sets of uncertainties. This study recommends that educational communities engage in discourses addressing ongoing issues facing the dynamic, fluid border environs. Critical border praxis provides conditions in which we, as educators and members of diverse communities of learners, become cross-borders and broaden the possibilities to achieve what had been considered the unattainable. Resources need to be prioritized and redirected toward educational efforts on national, state and local levels so critical border praxis becomes a reality.Social implicationsThrough transnational and transborder engagements, such as educational exchanges, both US and Cuban educators are provided opportunities to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of their own educational systems. The role of education, formal and informal, then serves to transform perceptions one-by-one, school-by-school, community-by-community and to influence policy makers to reconstruct education country-by-country as part of pragmatic hope for an enduring Pax Universalis. Pax Universalis serves as a third space where transborder students and educators alike are positioned as co-creators of knowledge and agents of change.Originality/valueThis study proposes a new emergent third space resulting from critical border dialogism that utilizes border pedagogy and critical pedagogies of place to seek new zones of mutual respect and cooperation among educators. Common educational understandings are the key starting point for a critical border praxis that facilitates ongoing dialogue between the two countries and offers pragmatic hope for the futures of both nations and opportunities to ameliorate relationships. An emergent third space is possible through sustained critical border praxis, a praxis that seeks to address points of contention and the bridges that need crossing between the two neighboring countries.

Thick Description as Pedagogical Tool: Considering Bowers’ Inspiration for Our Work

This article begins with deep appreciation of Chet Bowers’ powerful charge to take up thick description as a pedagogical tool, while also acknowledging the unpleasant manner in which he offered this charge in response to Gruenewald’s notion of a critical pedagogy of place. The article, then, prompted by Bowers’ charge, is a story and analysis of our ‘rush of descriptions’ about a controversial issue in the community where we reside. To better understand how thick description might contribute to EcoJustice pedagogy we present excerpts of our rush of descriptions and analyze them using Bowers’ 5 themes of language, commodification, tradition, science, and technology. In doing so, we found that our in-depth examination does, indeed, make apparent these themes, suggesting thick description could be a promising component of EcoJustice pedagogy.

Teaching Critically Where Rural and Nonrural Cultures Intersect

With the adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) by much of the United States, local school districts are encouraged to develop CCSS-aligned curricula that are culturally relevant for an area’s students. However, addressing cultural relevancy within communities where rural and urban cultures intersect requires a conceptualization of a rurban space that lies between rural and urban places and processes. The results of document analysis, surveys, interviews, and generational narratives conducted in a rurban county in a southeastern U.S. state indicate a need for a critical rurban pedagogy that merges a critical pedagogy of place with local values and the complexities of rurban culture to serve as a foundation from which to build culturally relevant curricula.

"The Spirit of Our Rural Countryside": Toward an Extracurricular Pedagogy of Place

While place-based pedagogies and place-conscious education have received a great deal of attention in community literacy, these studies have often focused on classroom efforts at engaging students in their communities. This article articulates an extracurricular pedagogy of place through a historical study of a network of creative writing groups in mid-century rural Wisconsin. Rather than thinking of place-conscious education as something that emerges from the classroom, the work of these writers suggests that scholars and educators in community literacy look instead for place-based literacies already at work in our communities.

Editors' Introduction

Editors' Introduction Paul Feigenbaum and Veronica House As we look toward the third Conference on Community Writing, taking place in Philadelphia in October, we can't help but marvel at all the extraordinary work happening across the United States and beyond. Community literacy, in all its variety, takes us on a journey through different communities in order that we learn from them about the complexity and beauty of human existence. In this issue, we move between a prison cell, a physical therapy retreat, a kitchen table, an archive, a writing center, and a classroom in order to explore the many ways in which writing encourages healing, self-revelation, and transformation. Our first peer-reviewed essay, "Typing Corrections: An Exploration & Performance of Prison (Type)Writing" by Alexander Rahe and Daniel Wuebben, is a rather atypical looking journal article. For reasons that will become clear as you read, the piece's co-authors wrote their respective sections on Swintec 2410cc typewriters while simultaneously employing an astonishing array of typing-related metaphors in order to compose an original and (literally) impressionable reading experience. In turn, the editors—in consultation with the authors and the journal's publisher—decided to publish the essay in its original typeface and with minimal copyediting. For one reason, a traditional copyediting process would have posed considerable material challenges. But perhaps more importantly, we decided that to "correct" the handful of mechanical errors sprinkled throughout the manuscript would in many respects undermine both the integrity and the spirit of the essay itself. After all, among the many insights articulated in Rahe and Wuebben's compelling and provocative piece is that errors are part of the human condition. Their article also asks us to recognize that for a number of material, social, and political reasons, some errors are much more easily corrected than others; indeed, the process of correcting an error can be quite complex and uncertain, and many errors can never be entirely corrected. Depending on the circumstances, sometimes leaving an error uncorrected might make the most sense. Beyond reflecting on the "chain of corrections" in prisons, the manuscript offers an illuminating firsthand account of the constraints faced by writers on the inside as they pursue various writing-related goals, from personal expression to connectedness to advocacy. Kate Vieira's article, "Writing's Potential to Heal: Women Writing from Their Bodies," explores how writing can be used as a healing tool in community-based group settings. Vieira delves into writing produced by women seeking therapy for physical ailments. Through participant interviews, observation, and powerful examples of the participants' writing, she studies writing as an embodied and social practice that aids in the experience of physical healing. Ultimately, Vieira understands the curative potential of writing as a tool that can amplify the way people experience the healing effects of body-based therapies. [End Page 1] In "Writing From 'The Wrong Class': Archiving Labor in the Context of Precarity," Jessica Pauszek analyzes an ambitious, transnational effort to establish print and digital archives of working-class community publications associated with the Federation of Worker Writers and Community Publishers (FWWCP) in England. Having participated as one of the leaders of this project over several years, Pauszek reflects on the joyful discoveries, the intimate acquaintances, the physical and emotional labors, and the logistical and material challenges she and numerous collaborators experienced as they negotiated a rather daunting task—namely, to collect, sort, and curate the massive array of materials composed over several decades by FWWCP members. As Pauszek details, many of these materials were previously un-archived and scattered through much of England. Through these reflections, Pauszek conceptualizes a theory of archival precarity, and she considers the implications of this theory for community-literacy practitioners who partner with, and seek to archive the work of, marginalized populations. Nancy Reddy's "'The Spirit of our Rural Countryside': Toward an Extracurricular Pedagogy of Place" studies a wide array of archival documents from the Wisconsin Rural Writers' Association (WRWA), founded in 1948, to examine how rural people across the state have used creative writing to record and preserve the history, culture, and folklore of a rural way of life. Reddy's study of these "extracurricular literacies" examines...

City-based learning – koncepcja uczenia się poprzez miasto. Tło teoretyczne, podstawowe założenia, przyszłe konteksty rozwoju i implementacji

Currently, over a half of the world’s population lives in cities. It is estimated that by 2050 at least 85 per cent of Europeans will have lived in European cities. This trend is related to the fact that today cities are spaces of permanent learning in authentic contexts, which is fostered by the development of new technologies. However, little is known about the city-based learning concept, which is crucial for this type of technology-enhanced learning. Here, we discuss the theoretical background, basic assumptions and future contexts of development and implementation of this idea. Firstly, we demonstrate that city-based learning is contingent on such theories as urban studies, pedagogy of place, as well as urban education, explorative learning, learning outside the classroom, mobility of learning space or on-street activity. Secondly, we show that smartphones, tablets, GPS, educational cloud, and digital textbooks are technologies for city-based learning. We conclude that cities connected to an educational cloud (which is full of educational resources and serves as a platform for educational communication) are unique environments for students equipped with mobile tools. Finally, we point out a new project on a city-based learning implementation.

The Teacher’s Presence in Online Learning Community/Obecność nauczyciela w internetowej społeczności uczącej się

This paper reports the results of a survey study aimed at diagnosing the presence of teachers in the educational space of the Internet. The theoretical basis for the considerations are the assumptions of the pedagogy of place. It implies the ability to create new places of learning, including the world of the cyberspace, so often used by students. The question of the presence of the teacher on the Internet has become an important issue in pedagogical sciences, and in the wider field of social science. 182 Polish teachers from the Kuyavian-Pomeranian region participated in the described study. The obtained data allowed to indicate “Internet places” frequently visited by the surveyed teachers, to determine their interests for supplementing and updating their digital competences using forms of e-learning, for the cultural and creative activities and promoting their creations and exchange of experience on the Internet with particular emphasis on social media. The conclusions contain important premises for educational practice indicating the need to take pedagogical reflection by the teacher and to run concrete actions promoting humanistic values, to support students’ online activities, to make them aware of the importance of critical thinking and conscious and responsible publication of the content on the Internet. As it turns out, the surveyed teachers want to be present on the Internet, use its resources and communication services; unfortunately, their involvement in the pedagogisation of the Internet space and the promotion of their own substantive and methodological achievements in the cyberspace is still minor.

Biophilia and Sustainable Museum Education Practices

Museums offer significant learning experiences that contribute to sustainable societies and lifelong learning. However, museum education has historically been a field in flux, and a constant revitalization is needed. This paper examines Biophilia, created by artist and musician Björk, as a case-study to illustrate the potential of its pedagogical approach to affect sustainable museum learning practices. Biophilia inspires children to learn about sound, science, and nature through technology; it is an app-album that manifested itself in a museum context both as a concert venue and a multi-disciplinary experimental educational platform – ideal for museum learning. While the project was formally implemented in Iceland through high levels of inter-institutional collaboration, its theoretical relationship to museum education and critical pedagogy of place was overlooked. Using the Biophilia’s analogy of an ‘infectious virus’ and a futurist’s framework of creativity and play, I ask: what can the field of museum education learn from Biophilia?

Using GIS to Teach Placed-Based Mathematics in Rural Classrooms

The purpose of this article is to promote the use of GIS and place-based education (PBE) in rural mathematics classrooms. The pedagogy of place is disappearing from rural communities because of declining enrollments, lack of support, and federal mandates to focus more on basic academic skills. However, PBE does not stand in opposition to standards-based instruction and academic achievement; rather, it enhances instructional strategies for getting at these aims. We present examples of place that can be used to engage rural students in meaningful mathematics activities to improve their content knowledge and problem-solving ability. Barriers exist to full implementation of this work. Yet, we offer a vision of what is possible through the use of technological tools like GIS for teachers who teach in rural communities. Additional studies regarding the effect of using GIS are needed to bring the vision of situated place-based education closer to fruition.

Addressing the negative impact of consumerism on young people by (re)awakening their spirituality through sense of place

Consumerism holds the view that personal wellbeing and happiness depend largely on the material goods a person can buy (Dwyer 2007). Advertising constantly bombards our youth with images of materially seductive things. The impression given is that the right consumer goods will lead to a fulfilled life. However, the life experience of most young people is in stark contrast with what they should want as advocated by the consumption norms of society. It is often these contrasts that lead to feelings of inadequacy, lack of desirability and an inability to recognise one’s own worth. I argue that one way of addressing these feelings among young people is by (re)awakening their spirituality, starting at school. However, spirituality in education is a potentially contentious area and educators tend to shy away from it (De Klerk-Luttig 2008). I therefore suggest a pedagogy of place with specific reference to sense of place , as an avenue for reawakening students’ spirituality. I draw on the works of spirituality by Kessler (2000) and Webster (2004) and sense of place (Ardoin, Shuh, and Gould 2012) to provide a renewed, integrated framework.

Space for University Students: Specific Requirements for “Self-Learning” Environment – Theoretical Approach

Abstract The paper presents a humanistic approach in investigation of people-environment relations within university buildings. Architecture of the university buildings is considered to be a learning environment from the position of “critical pedagogy of place”. It emphasizes the importance of the place itself expressed by the specific link between building and its location understood mainly in environmental terms – not only as a functional node but also as a vital element of cultural and also natural environment (sustainable development). It also presents some of the contemporary research on learning environment focused on the topic of students’ engagement – influencing learning success, and its multiple relation with university building facilities and architecture. The theoretical considerations are illustrated by some examples of university buildings from US. The paper is a theoretical introduction to the following paper: “Students’ assessment of environmental conditions in university buildings – the research report”, which describes the method and results of research (by the same author) proceeded in a few Polish university buildings.

Once Upon a Toxic Sanctuary: Partnering to Restore and Reclaim a Dakota Sacred Site

In this article, we examine the role of partnerships as they relate to the destruction and reconstruction of Wakaŋ Tipi and Indian Mounds Park as a Dakota sacred feminine, origin, birth site through a theoretical lens of critical Indigenous pedagogy of place (Trinidad, 2016) and partnership studies (Eisler, 2005). We discuss the deep historical, social, psychological, and cultural relationship the Dakota have to this sacred site and the challenge of partnering with non-Dakota entities to restore Wakaŋ Tipi/Indian Mounds Park from a toxic waste dump to a spiritual sanctuary.

Narrating a Critical Indigenous Pedagogy of Place: A Literary Métissage

ABSTRACTThis essay responds to a persistent paucity of narrative and Indigenous perspectives in scholarship related to a critical pedagogy of place. In it Gregory Lowan‐Trudeau explores interrelated concepts such as diasporic indigeneity, identity, and critical, place‐based education and research through a literary métissage that weaves together Western and Indigenous narratives to reflect upon recent experiences of (re‐)visiting sites of great personal and familial significance.

Spatializing environmental education: Critical territorial consciousness and radical place-making in public schooling

ABSTRACTIn this case study of an environmental education (EE) program run in public schools of Rio de Janeiro, I use a constructivist spatial analytic to interrogate notions of space, place, and territory in critical EE practices. I examine the connections between socioenvironmental relations, counter-hegemonic political activity, and education by delving into the ideological characteristics of this EE effort, which seeks to subvert the reproduction of capitalist social relations. This case study shows that critical territorial consciousness can be used as a political strategy of representation and recognition for subjugated classes engaging in radical place-making within exploited territories. I find that critical pedagogies of place ideologically attuned to territoriality can foster a spatialized—in a sense, grounded—approach to the emancipatory ideals of decolonization.

Early Childhood Educators’ Perspectives on Children’s Rights

There is a need to understand better the role that early childhood educators’ perspectives on children’s rights play in informing pedagogical practice. In the Australian context there is unease regarding the place of children’s rights in current curriculum policy. This article examines how educators’ perspectives on children’s rights inform and influence their pedagogical practice. The ethnographic study reported here involved the participation of three early childhood teachers located in one Western Australian metropolitan primary school, and generated data through the combination of walking tours, photographs of the school environment, and a focus-group interview. Themes of “Access” and “Power-fullness” emerged from the data as local values illustrating the relationship between images of childhood held by teachers and pedagogical practice. The theoretical propositions of “Pedagogy of Place and Space” and “Pedagogy of Possibilities” are offered as provocations for educators of young children wishing to enhance their practice with a children’s rights-based discourse.

Be/longing: Reciprocal mentoring, pedagogies of place, and critical childhood studies in the time of Trump

This essay focuses on the important, but often taken-for-granted, roles that mentoring and collaborative inquiry play in rethinking childhood studies and situates our work in a time of resurgent racism and xenophobia in the United States—as well as invigorated movements to affirm human rights and social justice. It represents a co-mentoring dialogue, spanning over a decade, about the complexities of embodying critical, activist scholarship within dominant (White, Western, heteronormative, and Global North) assumptions about childhood, families, and communities. Our co-interrogation of these deeply encoded assumptions has been driven by a shared question of how to span the seemingly disparate discourse communities of critically engaged scholars and mainstream early childhood professionals in a variety of community contexts. These efforts have been guided by learning from Indigenous and Global South epistemologies and Black and Chicana/Latina/Mestiza feminisms. To illustrate what continues to be a reciprocal mentoring relationship, we use critical personal narrative to discuss key influences, literature, pedagogies of place, and exigencies of sustaining critical childhood studies movements in the current moment.

Engaging Karen refugee students in science learning through a cross-cultural learning community

ABSTRACTThis research explored how Karen (first-generation refugees from Burma) elementary students engaged with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) practice of constructing scientific explanations based on evidence within the context of a cross-cultural learning community. In this action research, the researcher and a Karen parent served as co-teachers for fourth- and fifth-grade Karen and non-Karen students in a science and culture after-school programme in a public elementary school in the rural southeastern United States. Photovoice provided a critical platform for students to create their own cultural discourses for the learning community. The theoretical framework of critical pedagogy of place provided a way for the learning community to decolonise and re-inhabit the learning spaces with knowledge they co-constructed. Narrative analysis of video transcripts of the after-school programme, ethnographic interviews, and focus group discussions from Photovoice revealed a pattern of emerging agency by Karen students in the scientific practice of constructing scientific explanations based on evidence and in Karen language lessons. This evidence suggests that science learning embedded within a cross-cultural learning community can empower refugee students to construct their own hybrid cultural knowledge and leverage that knowledge to engage in a meaningful way with the epistemology of science.

Place-based education & critical pedagogies of place: teachers challenging the neo-colonizing processes of the New Zealand and Canadian schooling systems

Place-based education & critical pedagogies of place: teachers challenging the neo-colonizing processes of the New Zealand and Canadian schooling systems