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      • Education

        Autoethnography, Self-Narrative and Teacher Education

        by Hayler, M.

        Autoethnography, Self-Narrative and Teacher Education examines the professional life and work of teacher educators. In adopting an autoethnographic and life-history approach, Mike Hayler develops a theoretically informed discussion of how the professional identity of teacher educators is both formed and represented by narratives of experience. The book draws upon analytic autoethnography and life-history methods to explore the ways in which teacher educators construct and develop their conceptions and practice by engaging with memory through narrative, in order to negotiate some of the ambivalences and uncertainties of their work. The author's own story of learning, embedded within the text, was shared with other teacher-educators, who following interviews wrote self-narratives around themes which emerged from discussion. The focus for analysis develops from how professional identity and pedagogy are influenced by changing perceptions and self-narratives of life and work experiences, and how this may influence professional culture, content and practice in this area. The book includes an evaluation of how using this approach has allowed the author to investigate both the subject and method of the research with implications for educational research and the practice of teacher education. Audience: Scholars and students of education and the education of teachers, researchers interested in autoethnography and self-narrative.

      • Education

        Liminal Traces

        Storying, Performing, and Embodying Postcoloniality

        by Chawla, D.

        Home and exile have become key discussions in discourses of globalization, cosmopolitanism, postcolonialism, transnationalism, identity, and multiculturalism. These discourses can be expected to flourish in the future as an increasing number of multicultural scholars struggle with various kinds of displacements and the meaning of home that is thereby instantiated anew as we experience living in between cultures. This book sits in the intersection between cultural studies and performance studies. It seeks to break theoretical and empirical ground by reframing understandings of home and exile. Popular notions of exile forwarded by transnational and postcolonial scholars position home as a place of return and longing. While we believe that there are many truths in this position, we performatively seek emergent forms of displacement that are demanding new frameworks with which to enact meanings of home and exile. As Third World immigrant scholars in Western academe, we believe our move is vital in order to explore the experiences of persons, such as ourselves, who fall outside the models of displacement that have long constituted émigré writings. We define this move as a performative one because we experiment with different genres and voices to question and reproblematize existing understandings of knowledge frames. The genres we embody include performative writing, dialogue, autoethnography, essay form, personal narrative, and so on. Our goal is to address theories, stories, and pedagogies that speak to our tribulations in negotiating such intellectual displacements. This book can be an ideal supplementary text for courses in cultural studies as every chapter speaks in performative, reflexive, and storied ways to our own struggles to find real and theoretical homes. It will therefore have relevance to many departments in the humanities, including Communication Studies, English, Cultural Studies, Education, Anthropology, Sociology, and Women's Studies. In fact, this book serves the heuristicfunction of inspiring new research questions and demonstrating how a wide range of theories and research methods can be employed to enact discourses of home and exile.

      • Education

        Action Learning and Action Research

        Songlines through Interviews

        by Zuber-Skerritt, O.

        These songlines 'sing' into history the personal story of Action Learning and Research (ALAR) by an ALAR founder, Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt. Revealed through a collection of interviews conducted by scholars from six countries, these engaging, informative, intimate stories record her ALAR journey to document history and, more importantly, to help develop skills and innovation in workplace/community and lifelong learning for everyone, including the disadvantaged and poorest. Reviewers comments: This book is a must read for action researchers of all stripes and experience levels. Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt, a principal architect of ALAR who has pushed the boundaries of AR conceptually and methodologically, has now created a unique book built out of orchestrated interviews that provide us with much insight into who she is, why and how to learn from her, and invitation to collaborate in further developing our practice for the benefit of everyone. Davydd Greenwood, PhD, Goldwin Smith Professor of Anthropology, Cornell University, USA. --------- Interlinking interviews with personal and professional reflection make this book a welcome contribution, not only to ALAR but also to the wider development of personal narrative research and autoethnography. The methodology will inspire readers to be both creative and honest in their approach to their own studies. Morwenna Griffiths, PhD, Professor and Chair of Classroom Learning, School of Education, Edinburg University, UK --------- I'm excited by the PIP model (Preamble-Interview-Postscript) that Ortrun introduces to structure her ALAR story in this book. It's particularly useful in African countries for making public indigenous knowledge that is traditionally transferred by means of story telling. Ansu Erasmus, PhD, Professor and Senior Director, Higher Education Development and Services, Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria, South Africa ---------- In this innovative self-ethnographic account, Ortrun shares the experiences that are sources of her wisdom in relation to ALAR. Those who yearn for more control of their work situations, their lives and their environment in general, will be empowered by the personal learning that her 'songlines' convey. Shirley Grundy, PhD, Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong.

      • Education
        February 2012

        Writing the Family

        Women, Auto-Ethnography, and Family Work

        by Skott-Myhre, K.

        This is not a traditional book about the family. In a very essential way, it is a book about being a woman in relation to the current form of the family under capitalism in North America. The authors are three women whose interest in the family stems out of their own unique and varied experiences. The text is comprised of three autoethnographies that look at the family from radically distinct perspectives. Each section is rooted in the author’s own personal and professional life experience. The book explores multi-cultural family therapy, living inside a divorcing family, the role of child protective services, issues of class and race in a family’s identity, how media and pop psychology shape our view of the family, and what it is to be female in a patriarchal family system. All three women are currently working with young people in various capacities. Each section offers new ways to work together with young people to reshape the family so that it better serves those who live within it. Cover photo by Zakk Malecha.

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