Debbie Pushor PhD

LEARNing Landscapes: Issues and Innovations

The current issue presents texts that we hope will help educators more deeply understand the meaning and responsibility of curriculum in our schools and the wider community.

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Popularity: 14%

Publications 2008

To provide an understanding of the learning in teacher education that happens in a voluntary and deliberate small group gathering place, we story our living out of relational knowing, respectful listening, response, inquiry, ‘world’-travelling, attending to tensions, learning to think narratively, and becoming teacher educators. What we open up in this chapter is a subtle but radical shift in how teacher educators can be educated.

Steeves, P., Yeom, J., Pushor, D., Nelson, C., Mwebi, B.M., Murray Orr, M., Murphy, M.S., Glanfield, F., Huber, J., Clandinin, D.J. (In press). The research issues table: A place of possibilities for the education of teacher educators. In C.J. Craig & L.F. Deretchin (Eds.), ATE Teacher Education Yearbook XVII. Lanham, ML: ScarecrowEducation (An imprint of the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group).

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For some narrative inquirers, there is an interrelationship with action research, if we understand action research as research that results in action or change in the practices of individual researchers, participants, and institutional practices. In this chapter, Clandinin and I take on the task of exploring these interconnections between narrative inquiry and action research understood from this perspective.

Pushor, D. & Clandinin, D.J. (In press). The interconnections between narrative inquiry and action research. In B. Somekh & S. Noffke (Eds.), Handbook of Educational Action Research. London: SAGE Publications.

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In this chapter, I tell stories which speak of typical and taken-for-granted practices about how parents are often rendered invisible in schools and how their parent knowledge is overlooked as teachers privilege their own knowledge and prioritize the school’s agenda over that of the parents. In my restorying of these practices, I bring forward a glimpse of what is possible, what can be realized for children, parents, families, and educators, when we challenge the assumptions and beliefs that underlie typical school practices, and when we interrupt them to put new practices in their place.

Pushor, D. (In press*). Are schools doing enough to learn about families? In T. Turner-Vorbeck & M. Miller Marsh (Eds.), Learning to listen to families in schools. New York: Teachers College Press. *The anticipated release date of this book is April, 2009.

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This piece on collaborative research is an entry in The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research methods. It focuses on the epistemological, ideological, and ethical beliefs which underlie collaborative research and the ways in which those beliefs are translated in the design, implementation, and dissemination of such research.

Pushor, D. (In press. Projected publication date 8/19/08). Collaborative research. In L.M. Givens (Ed.), The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publishers. 9 pp.

Popularity: 7%

Publications 2007

In this article, I tell and unpack two narratives of my experiences with welcoming parents into schools. I explore what it means to be ‘welcoming’ and I foreground elements that appear significant in creating a sense of place and engagement for parents in their children’s schooling.

Pushor, D. (2007, Fall). Welcoming parents: Educators as guest hosts on school landscapes.* Education Canada, 47, (4), 6-11.

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In this article, Clandinin, Murry Orr and I attend to complexities surrounding all phases of a narrative inquiry, a kind of inquiry that requires particular kinds of wakefulness. We outline three commonplaces and eight design elements for consideration in narrative inquiry.

Clandinin, D.J., Pushor, D. & Murray Orr, A. (2007, January/February). Navigating sites for narrative inquiry. Journal of Teacher Education, 58, (1), 21-35 Pushor, D. (2007, Fall). Welcoming parents: Educators as guest hosts on school landscapes.* Education Canada, 47, (4), 6-11.

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In this article, I make apparent the scripted story of school and how, by accepting the taken-for-grantedness of their positions in this structure, educators and parents reinforce, and are constrained and shaped by, the conditions imposed upon them. I explore how we can work against these constraints by interrupting current practices of parent involvement and putting practices of parent engagement in their place.

Pushor, D. (2007, January). Parent engagement: Creating a shared world. Invited research paper posted on the Ontario Ministry of Education website.

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Muhajarine, N., Horn, M., Glacken, J., Evitts, T., Pushor, D. & Keegan, B. (2007). Full-time Kindergarten in Saskatchewan, part one: An evaluation framework for Saskatchewan full-time Kingergarten programs. Research report, Community-University Institute for Social Research, Saskatoon, SK, 74 pp.

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Muhajarine, N., Evitts, T., Horn, M., Glacken, J. & Pushor, D. (2007). Full-time Kindergarten in Saskatchewan, part two: An evaluation of full-time Kindergarten programs in three school divisions. Research report, Community-University Institute for Social Research, Saskatoon, SK, 110 pp.

Popularity: 7%

Publications 2006

Glanfield, F. & Pushor, D. (2006, Spring). The courage to be constructivist mathematics leaders. National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics Journal of Mathematics Education Leadership, 9, (1), 25-33.

Popularity: 7%

Publications 2005

Pushor, D., Ruitenberg, C., with co-researchers from Princess Alexandra Community School. (2005, November).  Parent engagement and leadership. Research report, project #134, Dr. Stirling McDowell Foundation for Research into Teaching, Saskatoon, SK, 79 pp.

Pushor, D. (2005, February).  Are schools doing enough to learn about families? Member insights, Family Involvement Network of Educators, Harvard Family Research Project.

Pushor, D. & Ruitenberg, C. W. (2005). “Maybe it’s time I changed”: Challenging assumptions: A starting place for engaging parents. Principals Online, 1(1), 42-46. Retrieved October 28, 2005, from http://www.principalsonline.com/downloads/oct2005_parentrelations.pdf

Ruitenberg, C. W. & Pushor, D. (2005). “It’s not about colour-coordinating the napkins with the table cloth”: Hospitality and invitation in parent engagement. Principals Online, 1(1), 32-35.

Pushor, D. (2005, February). Review of C. Craig’s, Narrative inquiries of school reform: Storied lives, storied landscapes, storied metaphors. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 11, 131-146.

Evitts, T., Muhajarine, N., & Pushor, D. (2005). Full-time Kindergarten in Battlefords School Division #118 Community Schools. Research report, Community-University Institute for Social Research, Saskatoon, SK, 43 pp.

Popularity: 10%

Publications 1998 – 2004

Pushor, D. (2004). Debbie Pushor: The rich work of teachers. In K. Cooper and R. White, Burning issues: Foundations of education. Maryland: Scarecrow Education, pp. 160-162.

Pushor, D. & Murphy, B. (2004, Fall). Parent marginalization, marginalized parents: Creating a place for parents on the school landscape. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 50, (3), 221-235.

Pushor, D.A. (2001). A storied photo album of parents’ positioning and the landscape of schools. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB.

Pushor, D. & Topol, E.R. (2000, May). Exchanges on narrative inquiry. Among Teachers, 28, 3-13.

Steeves, P. & Pushor, D. (2000, May). Toward a fuller picture: Embracing complexity. Engendering Education: Canadian Association for the Study of Women and Education International Institute, Published conference proceedings, 178-184.

Huber, J. & Pushor, D. (2000, May). Traveling . . . through story . . . toward the worlds of children living in inner city communities. Among Teachers, 28, 15-17.

Pushor, D. (1999, Winter). A parent on the school landscape. Among Teachers, 26, 8-10.

Pushor, D. (1998, Fall). Shifting vantage points: The ‘teacher suit’. Among Teachers, 25, 13-14.

Popularity: 7%