On Thursday, January 21, the Early Childhood Community Development Centre (ECCDC), the District School Board of Niagara (DSBN) and the Niagara Catholic District School Board (NCDSB) hosted a special workshop for early childhood educators, teachers and parents. The even took place at the Quality Parkway Hotel & Convention Centre in St. Catharines and featured a presentation by Dr. Debbie Pushor, Associate Professor of Education from the University of Saskatchewan.

Joining Our Voices – Part 2

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On April 16, 2009 in San Diego, CA, Debbie Pushor was presented with an Early Career Award, an International award sponsored by the Narrative Research Special Interest Group (SIG) of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). This award is designed to recognize a researcher’s outstanding accomplishment in the area of narrative research and is intended to honor an individual in the early stage of her or his career, that is, no later than 10 years after receipt of the doctoral degree.

Dr. Jerry Rosiek, in making the award presentation, noted that Debbie received this award because of her writing in the area of narrative inquiry, her mentorship of graduate students and new scholars engaged in narrative inquiry research, her contribution to developing narrative inquiry graduate courses, and her use of narrative research methodologies in developing an exciting new research program around the topic of parent knowledge and parents’ positioning on school landscapes.

Writing in the Area of Narrative Inquiry
Debbie has published two significant co-authored pieces on narrative inquiry. The first, “Navigating sites for narrative inquiry” was published in the Journal of Teacher Education and laid out a compelling framework for helping scholars design and live out narrative inquiries in teacher education. The article has been widely quoted as an excellent beginning source for narrative inquiry. The second of Debbie’s co-authored publications, “The interconnections between narrative inquiry and action research,” is an invited chapter in the new SAGE Handbook of Educational Action Research. Both pieces establish Debbie as a new scholar with expertise in narrative research methodologies.

Sage Journals Online – Debbie Pushor

Mentorship of Graduate Students and New Scholars
Debbie has supervised the theses and dissertations of a number of students who have undertaken narrative inquiry studies, both at St. Francis Xavier University and at the University of Saskatchewan. She has also served as an external examiner for students at other universities. In her role as program co-chair and program chair for the Narrative Research SIG, Debbie mentored new scholars and played a significant role in working with participants in a signature session of the SIG, “Moving into the Academy.” Prior to the start of AERA this year, she co-chaired an innovative two-day doctoral student seminar for the Narrative SIG/Invisible College. Debbie is an excellent mentor for graduate students and is enthusiastic about playing a mentorship role for the SIG.

Developing Narrative Inquiry Graduate Courses
Working with her colleagues at St. Francis Xavier University, Debbie introduced a graduate level course in their Education program. The course was well received and it has become an important part of the graduate program at St. FX. Since moving to the University of Saskatchewan, she has continued to push to have narrative inquiry as a methodology taught in courses and used for graduate student work. A course proposal for a methodology course in narrative inquiry, which Debbie co-developed, is currently being reviewed at the University of Saskatchewan. This course will promote narrative research in faculties outside of Education as well as within it.

Using Narrative Inquiry in her Program of Research
Debbie’s own research program relies heavily on narrative inquiry to develop conceptualizations of parent knowledge. She began this work in her doctoral program and has continued to pursue this program of research. Debbie was awarded a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) grant to support these studies. As well as publishing her work in academic venues such as books and journals, Debbie is making her research available in other forms and venues. She writes articles for school administrators, teachers and parents to engage a broad range of audiences and stakeholders in a dialogue about what it means to respect and use parent knowledge in decisions which impact children’s schooling and, in so doing, to shift the dominant stories of schools. Debbie is much in demand as a keynote speaker at local and national levels. ]]> http://www.debbiepushor.com/featured/early-career-award-2/feed/ 0 http://www.debbiepushor.com/featured/parent-knowledge-2/ http://www.debbiepushor.com/featured/parent-knowledge-2/#comments Fri, 18 Jul 2008 05:37:14 +0000 Debbie http://eslstage.com/?p=33 The objectives of this program of research are to determine what parent knowledge is and how parent knowledge is held and used.  While there is an extensive body of literature on teacher knowledge, there is no corresponding body of literature on parent knowledge.  Within schools, teachers are positioned as knowing professionals; parents are positioned as unknowing, or less knowing, about children and their learning processes.  A “badge of difference” separates educators and parents – determined by who holds professional knowledge of teaching and learning.  As long as this badge is worn by teachers, power and authority will continue to rest with educators and the current hierarchy in schools will be maintained.  Educators will make decisions important to teaching and learning, often with little parent input or participation.  Parents will continue to serve as audience, spectators, fund raisers, aides and organizers.

In coming to a conceptualization of parent knowledge, new possibilities will emerge to shift the positioning of parents on school landscapes.  Can what parents know, given that it is different from what teachers know, enhance schooling experiences for children?  Can parent knowledge, used alongside teacher knowledge, inform decisions about school programs, policies, procedures and routines?

My questions about parent knowledge emerge out of, and further, my doctoral research – a narrative inquiry into the positioning of parents in relation to the landscapes of schools.  In analyzing attempts made to engage parents meaningfully in curriculum planning and implementation, I came to the realization that the parent expertise drawn on in this strand of my research came from the parents’ craft or professional knowledge, knowledge developed in their careers outside of home or in their extracurricular activities.  It struck me that the knowledge parents had gained from living with children in complex and ever-changing situations was not the knowledge drawn on in the research.

Clandinin and Connelly have conceptualized teachers’ “personal practical knowledge.”  I see the potential of using their conceptualization to research parents’ personal practical knowledge.  They describe personal knowledge as the teacher’s knowledge gained from lived experience in all aspects of life.  Practical knowledge is the teacher’s knowledge of the classroom gained through experiencing the dynamic interaction of persons, things and processes in the situation or environment of the classroom.  It is more than knowledge of theory; it is knowledge arising from the teacher’s experience which enables the teacher to make thoughtful, contextualized decisions about practice in a complex, dynamic and multifaceted situation.  Drawing a parallel between teachers and parents, it strikes me that parents too have personal practical knowledge.  Determining what that knowledge is, and how it is held and used, is the focus of this program of research.

The methodological approach for this program of research is narrative inquiry.  Dewey’s expression of the need for a philosophy of education based on a philosophy of experience is foundational.  The focus of narrative inquiry is “lived experience – that is, lives and how they are lived.”  The intention in this inquiry is to understand parents from their own perspective, to have them give accounts of their experience in their own terms – terms which will give insight into their stance in the world.  The intent in this inquiry is to search into the personal experiences of three parents in order to understand their knowledge as it becomes apparent through what they do and what they say, possibly in the form of temporal rhythms and cycles in their lives, in images and metaphors, in rules and practical principles, in personal philosophy and in narrative unity.

Current literature on parent involvement perpetuates the hierarchical structure of schools and the privileging of teacher knowledge.  It does not bring into question the ways parents are involved, or not involved, in schools.  Instead, it generates possibilities for doing the ‘same old things’ with parents in new ways. As there is no body of literature on parent knowledge, new understandings arising from this program of research have the potential to shift thinking about parents and their positioning in schools.  If parents are seen to be knowing, can they continue to be excluded from decisions about their children’s schooling?

In a research study into parent engagement and leadership at Princess Alexandra Community School (pre-Kindergarten through Grade Eight) in the Riversdale community in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, I established a research team in which, together, we examined the conditions that enabled school practices to move along the continuum from parent involvement to parent engagement and leadership. We also examined why some parents remained distanced from the school, and how more parents might become engaged at the school.

Working with co-researchers – parents, teacher assistants, teachers, community and adult education coordinators, administrators – meant Claudia Ruitenberg (research assistant) and I could do research with the school rather than on the school.

Three significant themes from this research help to inform a move toward greater engagement of parents on school landscapes. The first relates to assumptions and beliefs. Doing the work necessary within a school community to make conscious and explicit assumptions and beliefs about parents is a critical starting place. Consciously working to live positive assumptions about parents and beliefs about the engagement of parents in processes of schooling, in practice, is then the next step. The second theme relates to invitation and hospitality. Hospitality is not about teachers and administrators inviting people to their place, but about creating a place that is owned as much by students, parents and community members as it is by staff and administrators. The third theme is about developing trust and relationships. Trust and relationships are often formed when we move away from the institutionalized, ritualistic, and often public interactions between teachers and parents typical of most school landscapes to interactions which are much less formal and more intimate. I believe attending to these three aspects of schooling will change the school landscape. They have the potential to bring educators and parents together in a very different way in the work of schools.