New publication by Neila Miled – Educational leaders’ perceptions of multicultural education in teachers’ professional development
Miled, N. (2019). Educational leaders’ perceptions of multicultural education in teachers’ professional development: a case study from a Canadian school district. Multicultural Education Review, 11(2), 79-95
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2005615X.2019.1615249
ABSTRACT
This Paper presents and discusses the findings of an empirical qualitative study that was conducted in one school district in British Columbia, Canada. The paper explores the perspectives of the educational leaders and their understanding of multicultural education and how they implement it in the school district’s teachers’ professional development (ProD) and in-service education. It discusses the theoretical frameworks that shape the participants’ choices and actions concerning how they educate and support teachers to handle the complexities of diversity and the changing demographics in the school district. The findings highlight the dominant liberal framework of multicultural education, the systemic barriers to move beyond the tokenistic approach of cultures and the organizational constraints to move towards transformative, critical multiculturalism and anti-racism education in teachers’ training and professional development. The paper proposes critical transformative multiculturalism as an alternative to transform teacher education and engage with educational reform from a social justice framework.
New Publication by Sonia Medel
When asked about her recent creative-academic publication by Dr. Mazawi, Sonia shared:
Having three of my spoken-word poems published in the Spring 2019 Vol. 18, Issue 2, of Chicana/Latina Studies: The Journal of Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social, has me feeling all sorts of thankful, because it is not just another academic journal whose priority is rankings—its focus has always been building community and university bridges, transforming higher education and supporting-promoting new paradigms and methods. It features the women luchando. It was also started and is led by Chicana/x and Latina/x women who began resisting or were students of those original guerrerxs across the Americas, as early as the 60s. They have historically and continuously fought oppression in their own words, and on their own creative, community and scholarly terms. I started reading these women in my teens, long before instructors labelled them to me as ‘theory’ or ‘methodology’. A couple of years ago, I began performing spoken-word in conference and community settings when I was asked to introduce myself, as a form of resistance and celebration. The series published is one of three related projects on survival-refusal, resistance-healing, and contempothriving. This creative-academic publishing process has taught me the immense power of always connecting with the movimiento sources, of acknowledging their efforts to nurture new generations. I am happy to form part of a movement of Latinx peoples in Canada that are shouting loud and clear that we have histories of complex decolonizing-decolonial work (just like in the US), but above all, that our Latinx identity is plural, beautiful and resilient. Gracias C/LS MALCS for establishing space for our perspectives and welcoming my Spanglish words! The hard copy issue is out; and you will soon be able to access the online version here (and hopefully through the UBC library): http://journal.malcs.org/
Artwork by Jesmil M. Maldonado Rodríguez, detail of To The Newlyweds.
Jun 24, 2019
No pierden el humor: Humor in Mexico – An Update
June 24, 2019 12-2pm at PCOH 2012Light refreshments provided RSVP BY 21 JUNE 2019
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AGENDA
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As part of the recent Mitacs funded research project ‘No pierden el humor: Post-disaster humor in Mexico’,
Gabriella Maestrini, Shauna Butterwick and Larisa Enriquez Vasquez in collaboration with a group of students from UNAM in Mexico City cordially invite you to this seminar / workshop.
We are happy to extend the seminar invitation to EDST students, faculty and beyond.
“The word death is not pronounced in New York, in Paris, in London, because it burns the lips. The Mexican, in contrast, is familiar with death, jokes about it, caresses it; it is one of his [sic] favorite toys and his most steadfast love… Mexican death is the mirror of Mexican life…”
~ Octavio Paz
The Labyrinth of Solitutde
Jun 19, 2019
Educational Change in Canada and Switzerland: Shaping Transitional Processes
Findings from a year as a Visiting Scholar at UBC and as a guest in various school districts in BC.
EDST Critical Dialogues Seminar Series
Being a visiting scholar since September, 2018, at the Faculty of Education I am researching the ways public school systems in Europe and Canada have fostered on-going educational changes through the implementation of various curriculum initiatives dealing with competency-based programming and inclusive education for students with visible and invisible disabilities.
My aim is to acquire a deep understanding of strategies developed by different schools or school districts that led to the successful enactment of sustainable educational changes.
I have visited several school districts and interviewed administrators in an effort to learn more about key features of locally-developed implementation strategies that were deemed successful and sustainable educational changes.
The presentation describes aims of the project and the general approach to the research, shows first results, and discusses different ways of achieving successful educational change.
EDST 565A 81: Migration and Adult Education
EDST 565A 81: Migration and Adult Education
Term: Winter 1 (Sept – Dec., 2019)
Wednesdays, 4:30 – 7:30 pm
Instructor: Hongxia Shan
Email: hongxia.shan@ubc.ca
Phone: 604-822-3349
Course introduction
“All the world seems to be on the move” (Urry, 2006, p. 207). Asylum seekers, professionals, guest workers, undocumented migrants, international students, business people, families, tourists and many others have changed the social, cultural, economic and political landscape across place. The phenomenal scale, speed, and spread of the migratory movement, coupled with the accelerating rate of globalization and technological development, has transformed how social relations are organized, performed and mobilized in the local, national, and transnational realms. It seems to have led to the formation of a connected, networked, pluralized, and according to some, decentered or flattening world. Yet, at the same time, we’ve also witnessed the entrenchment and emergence of old and new disconnects, divides, disparities and inequalities, all calling for a close engagement with flexible capitalism and (neo)colonialism. On the one hand, the social ideal associated with immigration has shifted from assimilation, which is one-way and one sided, to integration, supposedly a two-way process, with transnationalism looming always in the horizon. On the other hand, while multiculturalism has been a major policy discourse managing immigration and diversity, much of the global west, with the exception of Canada, has moved into an era of post-multiculturalism. All these have presented unprecedented opportunity as well as challenge for adult educators and cultural workers, especially those who work in the areas of vocational education, language training, employment support, immigrant settlement and workplace diversity management.
This course is designed to inquire into, drawing on interdisciplinary readings and research, the changing policies, practices, pedagogies and politics of adult education and learning, vis-à-vis multiple mobilities, super-diversity, and shifting social and material organization of work and life. Through this course, you will develop a critical appreciation of the context of immigration, integration, (post)-multiculturalism, (neo)colonialism, and transnationalism and its impacts on adult education and learning. You will expand your understanding of the politics of skills and recognition, the complex roles that adult education and learning plays in immigrants’ work and lives, as well as the power and problems of everyday pedagogies, everyday multiculturalism and convivial (dis)integration. You will also develop a repertoire of epistemic, pedagogical and research tools and skills in approaching issues of diversity, equity, and social justice in your educational practices. This course is suited for educational practitioners and researchers who are interested in learning about and challenging the status quo of adult education and learning as it relates to issues of immigration and integration.
Panel: From Self-Healing to Self-Loathing
Panel: From Self-Healing to Self-Loathing: Reflections on Teaching Under the Rhizomatic influence of Globalization and Racism (part of Congress 2019)
Presenters: Stephanie Glick, Sonia Medel, Gabriella Maestrini, and Esraa Al-Muftah
When: Monday, June 3, 3 – 4:15 PM
Where: Scarfe 1004
Overview: This panel takes a deep dive into the rhizomatic influence of globalization, racism, and other “-isms” on teaching and learning processes in higher education. Panelists draw attention to the term ‘rhizomatic’ to express how the aforementioned issues network horizontally under the surface and then extend (in)visibly into the public realm. Though we situate our work with the understanding that globalization, racism and other -isms seep into educators’ psyches and distress the synergy between teaching philosophy and practice, we offer antidotes to such wedges that include embodiment, mindfulness, and humor. The panelists inquire into, theorize, and push back against dominant ways of knowing, dominant discourses, and dominant power structures.
Presenters:
Stephanie Glick, Teaching as medicine: Healing the body and tending to “-isms” in the classroom via wellness
Western higher education frequently pivots from a Cartesian understanding of teaching and learning that ascribes value to the mind while segregating or silencing the contributions of Other knowledges located in the body, senses, nature, and non-dominant cultures. I argue that by denying Other ways of knowing, we disconnect from the intelligence of our bodies which can alert us to our own biases and those of our students. I reflect on teaching as practice for engaging to my own physical healing following a debilitating injury. I reveal how my commitment to incorporate wellness as a mandatory component of a university course I taught consequently allowed me to interrupt microaggressions in the classroom in productive ways. I place feminist, anti-racist, and decolonial theories alongside research on contemplative pedagogies.
Sonia Medel, Crimson red resistance: An ‘in the works’ take on brave learning spaces
In this autoethnographic spoken-word to paper performance piece, I spew, mutter, stomp, shout back and affirm my ever-killjoy Latina self, establishing a brave space. In a time of simultaneous proliferating (anti)oppressive socio-political governance and relationship-building/ destruction, I speak to the educational ‘trends’ unfolding within Canadian academia and arts/ social justice communities and draw from personal experiences—luchas and demons—of teaching within Latin American Studies and Education classrooms, situating them amongst existing cross-country/ border testimonios. I frame my words with my crimson red lipstick and draw from the work of culturally sustaining, brave space, and guerrerxs pedagogues. My blood-stained lips call for accomplices within and outside the classroom. I aim to do nothing less than leave an implicating kiss mark on the white walls and necks that attempt to define Indigenous, Black, and racialized women educators and introduce a personal and collective ‘in the works’ take on brave learning spaces.
Gabriella Maestrini, Post/colonial laughter: The performed cultural memories of stand-up comedian Trevor Noah
Events such as 9/11, deaths of celebrities, and televised funerals help us understand that spontaneous memorials, candle vigils, photographs and stories are all ways through which people perform cultural memory. This concept is based on Taylor (2003) who investigates performances such as dance and theatre as cultural memory practices that inhabit knowledge of the past, the present and the future. This paper stretches this concept to include stand-up comedy and everyday lived experiences through which we perform, know and remember the world (Carlson, 2016; Denzin, 2011). Cultural memory may be collective, individual, private and public, or may even be considered counter-memory depending on the status of insider/ outsider (Meusburger, 2011). Performed cultural memory is embodied knowledge of race, identity, class and oppression much as encountered by Trevor Noah during his life in South Africa under Apartheid. Through his comedic ability to speak back to racism, he uses humor as a vehicle for sharing these memories with a wider audience. Through laughter, pauses and suspensions, the pedagogical moments in of his skits, Noah draws the audience and the spectators into his memories where he unravels the insidious elements of a racist regime that effectively has identity groups clash. In this sense, Noah uses the humor in performed cultural memory as critical public pedagogy (Denzin, 2009; Rossing, 2016) to show us knowing and understanding of power dynamics in the world and telling us, through humor, about the embodied effects of racism.
Esraa Al-Muftah, Internationalizing ʿqdat alkhawajah: “Whiteness” in a postcolonial context
Qatar University was ranked by the THE World University Rankings as the most internationalized university in 2016. What does this internationalization mean for the teacher in the classroom as s/he is forced to teach an “internationalized” curriculum and abandon a culturally relevant one? I argue, from my experience teaching at Qatar University, this neglect of the local creates the self-loathing educator and future-teacher. An educator stuck in a postcolonial context that continues to foster whiteness as a subject position of expertise and rationality – a complex referred to as ʿqdat alkhawajah.