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Aboriginal Adolescents, Critical Media Health Literacy, and the Creation of a Graphic Novel Health Education Tool
No full textAs Coyote tossed his eyes the next time, the ravens swooped, swift as arrows from a strong bow. One of them snatched one eye and the other raven caught the other eye."Quoh! Quoh! Quoh\u27," they laughed, and flew away to the Sun-dance camp. (Quintasket, 1933)The knowledge mobilization project involving Aboriginal students described in this article is an extension of a multi-phase, longitudinal, interdisciplinary research project aimed at understanding the processes through which adolescents develop critical media health literacy (CMHL) (Wharf Higgins & Begoray, 2012; Wharf Higgins, Begoray, Beer, Harrison, & Collins, 2012). The primary purpose of this project was to create a culturally relevant CMHL health education graphic novel. An additional purpose was to develop pedagogical approaches to be used to stimulate discussion around media-perpetuated health messages with Aboriginal adolescents: Like Coyote, they too have had their eyes snatched. In brief, we collaborated with Aboriginal students to create culturally sensitive material representative of their identities as media-affected adolescents in the 21st century. In turn, the dialogic process utilized during our project appeared to be a viable pedagogical approach when working with CMHL and Aboriginal adolescents, a supposition that will be the subject of our further research in the fall of 2013. Throughout the project, the authors, all of whom are non-Indigenous, were guided in their use of Indigenous ways of knowing by the Aboriginal education community.Keywords: Aboriginal adolescent health; health education; critical media health literacy; graphic novels as health education toolsAuthor Note:The authors gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Canadian Institues of Health Research (CIHR 293119) in the funding of this project
Liberalism, Advanced Liberalism, and the Governmental Policy Challenge in Education
No full textGovernmentality, as credited to Michel Foucault, was developed later on in the theorist’s life.In Foucault’s understanding of government, or governmentality, our sources of regulation are anchored in the programmes, policies, strategies, methods, thoughts and action of our everyday conduct. Governance becomes more a methodology, a practice or rational way of doing things, affecting the way in which power is exercised over ourselves and others. Thus as governance moves past fixed understandings concerning hierarchical power (state and civil society) subject freedom becomes participant in forms of state organization and regulation. Foucault’s approach towards liberalism begs an analysis rationalizing political and educational forms of governance as such an activity. Here liberalism may be viewed as a reflective way of doing things, a method for rationalizing government practices, in that the state will profit and boost control by actually doing less over a citizenry. Under advanced liberalism (neoliberalism) the pathways of state government and self-government collide with even less frequency. Control then is more characteristically the mandate of the individual as citizens become experts of themselves, exerting rituals of personal regulation over bodies, conduct, and minds. This paper scrutinizes the influences of both liberal and advanced liberal administrative streams in Canadian educational policy, asking stakeholders to think long and hard on what is asked of our profession
Applying First Nations Holistic Lifelong Learning to the Study of Crime
No full textSince the 1970s, critics have asked universities to “do more” to support Indigenous learners and learning. Universities usually respond by increasing Indigenous student and faculty representation on campuses and adding on units with Indigenous content in existing courses. However, a lot of curriculum and pedagogy remains vacant of Indigenous understandings of learning and perspectives on higher education content and topics for discussion. This paper applies epistemological lessons in the First Nations Holistic Lifelong Learning Model (2007) to the study of crime in America. Its inspiration comes from a guest lecture delivered by myself in an introductory sociology class. The students who take this class are registered in professional programs at a large private university in Rhode Island, United States. I describe the class’s context and use of the model with students in an engaged inquiry format to talk about the subject of the day: crime. This discussion can help faculty consider promising practices for grounding course content in Indigenous epistemologies. Keywords: Indigenous epistemologies; crime; higher educatio
Ekphrastic Poetics: Fostering a Curriculum of Ecological Awareness Through Poetic Inquiry
No full textIn this article we outline the role of ekphrastic poetics in an ecological practice of poetic inquiry. Ekphrastic poetics, as a rhetorical device, involves one medium of art relating to another medium by unfolding its form and essence. Ultimately, our work involves a poetic response to an aesthetic form and it is through our ongoing collaborations that we are able to outline the importance of the poetic benefits of dwelling in natural places. We offer specific examples of how we engage in interpretive response activities that help to foster ecological habits of mind in teacher education. Keywords: arts-informed; ekphrastic poetics; collaboration; poetic inquiry; ecology; curriculu
Coming Full Circle: White, Euro-Canadian Teachers’ Positioning, Understanding, Doing, Honouring, and Knowing in School-Based Indigenous Education
No full textThis narrative study contributes to the field of school-based Indigenous education by exploring the central research question: What are the decolonizing processes of practicing teachers involved in a provincially funded initiative to improve schooling for urban Aboriginal students? Excerpts from teachers’ narratives are organized using the Anishinaabe medicine wheel, anchoring the exploration of the following five directions and associated decolonizing processes: teachings from the centre/positioning, teachings from the east/honouring, teachings from the south/understanding, teachings from the west/doing, and teachings from the north/knowing. This paper concludes with a discussion of how White, Euro-Canadian teachers’ decolonization informs the fields of Indigenous education, teacher education, and narrative inquiry
Let’s Do it First and Talk About it Later: Rethinking Post-Secondary Science Teaching for Aboriginal Learners
No full textAs an oral culture, Aboriginal ways of knowing and learning come through practice and practical application first, rather than through theory or text. For Aboriginal students, the Western methodological approach to learning theory first, poses a counterintuitive near insurmountable roadblock, particularly in science. This paper presents the results of two successful pilot course offerings of an introductory chemistry course in a First Nations’ Transition Program; a course that engaged Aboriginal students in a creative, hands-on, practical way. The medicine wheel, in the context of the four seasons (spring, summer, autumn, and winter), is used as the frame to teach chemistry concepts from an Aboriginal cultural lens and beginning with hands-on methodology to establish context and develop experience before bridging to Western theory. Keywords: Aboriginal students; learning theory; curriculum; teaching practice
Performing Embodied Pedagogy: Listening to the Small Talk of My Injured Back
No full textI approach my new class of teachers-in-training with familiar embodied postures of discomfort and pain, anxiety and fear. I listen to my embodied poetic texts and reinterpret them through an injured body as inquiry into all my identities as musician, writer, photographer, educator, and yogi. I introduce myself to my new students by playing my flute, a vulnerable demonstration and invitation to negotiate corporeal histories through arts-based expression and transformative writing processes
A Review of "Is Everyone Really Equal? An Introduction to Key Concepts in Social Justice Education" by Ozlem Sensoy and Robin DiAngelo
No full textA Review of Is Everyone Really Equal? An Introduction to Key Concepts in Social Justice Education by Ozlem Sensoy and Robin DiAngel
A Review of "Qualitative Methodology: A Practical Guide"
No full textA Review of Qualitative Methodology: A Practical Guide by Jane Mills and Belanie Birks (2014
School-Linked Services: Practice, Policy, and Constructing Sustainable Collaboration
No full textIn Saskatchewan, many of the provincial practices and policies addressing health and social issues including, poverty and social exclusion in multi-service schools are informed by an integrated services policy called SchoolPLUS. This study explores how SchoolPLUS discourse has shaped and continues to produce the collaborative integrated services landscape and impact wider social strategies even though it is no longer considered government policy. Three factors are suggested as reasons for SchoolPLUS’s decline. First, SchoolPLUS practice became edu-centric and marginalized other professions in blatant and subtle ways. Second, the level of collaborative competencies needed to perform collaboration is often underestimated—for SchoolPLUS too much might have been expected too fast—and finally, there was a daunting complexity factor at the macro level. Data was collected by analysing academic publications and public documents, including government newsletters and the provincial teacher’s newspaper. A practice policy paradox is revealed, suggesting that the concept of SchoolPLUS emerged organically from the vernacular of practice and continues to produce, and be reproduced, in this domain regardless of the current, official interprofessional policy. Keywords: multi-service schools; policy; integrated service