Teaching the postmodern : fiction and theory

Toward a Theory of Anti-Oppressive Education

Abstract: This article reviews the developing literature on anti-oppressive education (i.e., education that works against various forms of oppression) by summarizing and critiquing the four primary approaches that educational researchers have taken in conceptualizing (1) the nature of oppression and (2) the curricula, pedagogies, and policies needed to bring about change. These four approaches to anti-oppressive education are Education for the Other, Education About the Other, Education that Is Critical of Privileging and Othering, and Education that Changes Students and Society. Engaging in anti-oppressive education requires not only. using an amalgam of these four approaches. In order to address the multiplicity and situatedness of oppression and the complexities of teaching and learning educators also constantly need to "look beyond" the field of educational research to explore the possibilities of theories that remain marginalized, including post-structuralist and psychoanalytic perspectives. This article concl...

“Posts” Perspectives on Anti-Oppressive Education in Social Studies, English, Mathematics, and Science Classrooms

Abstract: What could it mean for educators within the “core disciplines” to teach in ways that challenge multiple forms of oppression? This article explores the implications of various “posts” perspectives on anti-oppressive education—especially poststructuralist perspectives—for social studies, English, mathematics, and science classrooms. The author focuses on two main theoretical constructs: unknowability, multiplicity, and looking beyond the known; and resistance, crisis, and resignifying the self. Implications for teacher education conclude the article.

Chapter 5: The New Narrative Research in Education:

Abstract: Throughout the 1980s, a different kind of academic inquiry gained momentum, one that invited the interpretations of previously ignored informants. It is difficult to imagine a scholar who has not noticed the many new publications featuring life stories and personal narratives. Yet, like the concurrent, and not unconnected, proliferation of volumes on \"the self and \"the postmodern,\" this phenomenon can seem both pervasive and elusive. Narrative research, in all of its various manifestations, is deeply implicated in contemporary conflicts over theory, methodology, and politics in scholarly investigation. Rather than providing evidence of a paradigm shift, however, an examination of these unruly developments would more likely confirm the arrival of a postparadigmatic age: New configurations emerge while earlier formulations persist, and various versions deconstruct and recombine. Nevertheless, I believe that it is possible to perceive some complex patterns of growth and change in this area. The aim of this chapter is not to curb the exhilarating experimentation that characterizes the current enthusiasm for narrative research. Rather, my purpose here is to familiarize readers with contemporary examples of narrative research in education while deliberating over definitions, examining explanations for the present popularity of such research, considering social purposes, addressing existing criticisms, and indicating innovative contributions.

Narrative Inquiry: Attending to the Art of Discourse

Abstract: At least once a year, I teach a graduate course titled Narrative Inquiry. At the beginning of the course I always inform students that they will not likely learn how to do narrative inquiry in the narrative inquiry course. Instead they will interrogate the strategies, purposes, practices, and challenges of narrative inquiry, and they will learn how complicated, even messy, the whole business of narrative inquiry really is. I organize the course around an investigation of three principal dynamics involved in narrative inquiry: story, interpretation, and discourse. I invite students to consider matters related to story and interpretation, but I encourage them especially to attend to the art of discourse.