Beyond the mirror towards a plurilingual prism: exploring the creation of plurilingual ‘identity texts’ in English and French classrooms in Toronto and Montpellier

In an age of transnational mobility, there has been a growing recognition of the need for both English and French mainstream classroom teachers to be trained to teach increasingly plurilingual student populations. In this article, I begin by describing the context for an exploratory comparative and collaborative ethnographic action research study in four English and French schools in Toronto, Canada and one school in Montpellier, France that engaged children as co-researchers of their lived plurilingualism. I analyse in particular the process of creating plurilingual multimodal books with students and teachers across the five different school cases. This paper focuses on the iterative ‘identity text’ creation process across all five schools by examining one plurilingual identity text from each case, along with students’ research conversations about their creative productions, and interviews with their classroom teachers and parents. Finally, I summarize five features of inclusive plurilingual pedagogy that emerged across the five cases and call for further collaborative research across English and French schools and scholarly communities investigating creative plurilingual language and literacy production in the twenty-first century.     

Exploring How an Elementary Teacher Plans and Implements Social Studies Inquiry

Social studies continues to be marginalized in elementary grades, yet the C3 Framework and its Inquiry Arc offer possibilities for high-quality elementary social studies instruction. However, the C3 Framework requires that teachers possess an adequate understanding of how to implement inquiry within the various social studies disciplines, which we argue is an aspect of the pedagogical content knowledge necessary for effective elementary social studies instruction. This single-case study follows an elementary teacher through her use of the C3 Framework, Inquiry Arc, and a related curriculum approach called the Inquiry Design Model as she conceptualized, planned, and implemented inquiries in her fifth-grade classroom. By incorporating this new knowledge into her existing understanding of social studies pedagogy, as well as her knowledge of her students and specific educational context, the teacher was able to successfully navigate some of the challenges associated with implementing social studies inquiry in elementary classrooms.     

Assimilation,segregation, or integration? A teaching project examining approaches to religious and ideological diversity in the classroom

In this article, we describe the multiple phases of a project that was constructed around the real case of a young Muslim student who wished to be exempted from coeducational physical education on religious grounds. When the school refused her initial request, she decided to take legal measures which ended up in the German Federal Administrative Court. The court ultimately ruled in her favour. Her case was selected as the core ingredient for a new teaching project, which studies acculturation from different perspectives, and examines the complex balance between individual rights and societal duties, as defined by constitutional law in the Federal Republic of Germany. This case demonstrates that the majority society, represented in this study by the school, at times needs to change traditional educational policy in order to further national goals of integration; not as a compromise, but as a fair balance of interests. The project was implemented successfully as an integrated part of teacher preservice education occurring towards the end of the first academically based phase of their training.     

“I Have No More to Write”: Writing as Trigger and Treatment for Suicidal Students

How can a concerned teacher spot suicidal tendencies in a student—before it is too late? I found a dramatic increase in a student’s output when the student wrote about tragic works by the poet Oscar Wilde, and found that certain themes and symbols were both linked to and distinct from their counterparts in the works of verbal art. I propose a noninvasive, sustainable set of guidelines that might be used to detect students at risk and interventions that I believe to be not only good suicide prevention, but also sound pedagogy.     

Katabasis,adult betrayals and liminal identities in China Keitetsi’s Child Soldier: Fighting for My Life

In Child Soldier, China Keitetsi recounts her experiences as a child and a soldier during Yoweri Museveni’s guerrilla war against then Ugandan president, Milton Obote. Drawing on key debates on literary representations of katabasis, this paper examines Keitetsi’s portrait of adult betrayal and parental abuse of children at home, and as child soldiers. I argue that Child Soldier is a text that lends itself to a katabatic analysis, and that Keitetsi is a katabasist who frames her experiences as a child and a soldier “within the narrative structure of a descent into Hell and return” . I argue that “hellish” elements in the memoir are more than just incidental: they point to a world where tenderness and love have long given way to cruelty and cynicism, and where madness and violence and despair are the order of the day. I also draw on Sigmund Freud and Homi Bhabha’s notions of the unhomely, to suggest that the memoir introduces interesting parallels between the unhomeliness in the home and that brought on by the civil war. Subconsciously, then, examining the memoir under the tropes of katabasis and the unhomely allows us to view her life as floating in-between the child she wishes she should have been and the abused and rejected young woman she becomes.     

An Interview with Joyce Edward: Exemplary Clinician, Advocate, and Scholar

Over the years, noteworthy social workers have been interviewed for the Clinical Social Work Journal. This article features an interview with Joyce Edward who is recognized for her many extraordinary contributions to clinical social work. Joyce has co-written or co-edited three exceptional books for the social work clinician, she has been an esteemed teacher and a vocal activist for quality mental health care. In this interview Joyce reflects on family influences, her work as a social caseworker, the psychoanalytic luminaries with whom she trained, her concerns about the clinical education of today's social work students, and finally, her perspective on managed mental health care.     

Leadership education for English language learners as transformative pedagogy

This qualitative case study investigates the transformative power of a leadership course designed for immigrant secondary school students learning English as an additional language with a social justice orientation. Course projects allowed the students to get involved in tutoring, present at a conference on intercultural education, deliver equity presentations and role model presentation skills for their peers by discussing topics such as Canadian culture, showcase their talents from their L1 cultures and give advice on how to integrate into the school and to lead activities to create school spirit by sharing music from their culture, running a ‘thank your teacher’ campaign, or taking the lead with an international humanitarian cause. The teacher’s plans and notes, course assignments, video footage of students presenting a conference workshop and monthly feedback forms were the data that allowed us to understand how transformative pedagogy was enacted by the teacher and experienced by the students in one Canadian secondary school with a very diverse student population.     

The role of student–teacher relationships in the association between negative parenting practices and emotion dynamics – Combining longitudinal and ecological momentary assessment data

Emotion dysregulation is increasingly implicated as a transdiagnostic risk factor in the etiology of mental health problems. This project aimed to explore the links between emotion regulation, negative parenting and student–teacher relationships using longitudinal and ecologically valid data. A sample of n = 209 young people enrolled in the ‘Decades-to-Minutes’ (D2M) study, based in Zurich, Switzerland, provided data from the ages of 7–20 via parent- and self-report questionnaires and ecological momentary assessment. Data were analyzed using Dynamic Structural Equation Modeling (DSEM). Worse student–teacher relationships predicted increased negative affectivity and emotional lability. Negative parenting practices predicted emotional lability only via their impact on student–teacher relationships. The findings point to worse student–teacher relationships as risk factors in the socioemotional development of children and young people.     

Preparing Teachers for English Learners: Integrating Academic Language and Community Service Projects

In this article we highlight elements of culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy that prepare teachers to work with English Learners (ELs) from a variety of backgrounds. Specifically, we focus on the learning experiences and practices of one secondary social studies teacher to explore promising practices with ELs and effective teacher preparation strategies. This article highlights two specific strategies used by the teacher: the intentional integration of academic language instruction through sheltered instructional observation protocol (SIOP) and community-engaged service learning. The findings suggest that the teacher improved his EL instruction, specifically within the context of his social studies curricula, and his experiences and reflections offer insights for teacher educators who seek to better prepare in-service and preservice teachers to serve ELs and their families.     

Margaret Atwood’s Straddling Environmentalism

Abstract

“Margaret Atwood’s Straddling Environmentalism” asks why Atwood crosses the Canada-US border in her dystopian fiction. It takes Atwood’s 2004 comments that The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) partly grew out of her ‘irritation when people say “it can’t happen here”’ and her claim that she decided to set the novel in Cambridge, Massachusetts as being related to that irritation—’”It can’t happen here,” she explained, “should be placed in the most extreme ‘here”’—as a prompt. Focusing on Oryx and Crake (2003), this article argues that one of Atwood’s motivations for crossing the Canada-US border in this novel is to provoke us to develop what Giovanna Di Chiro has termed ‘a scale-crossing environmental consciousness.’ Oryx and Crake challenges us to think about environmentalism in relation to local, embodied experiences as well as on a global, transnational scale.     

Teacher Outcomes from the Second Step Child Protection Unit: Moderating Roles of Prior Preparedness,and Treatment Acceptability

ABSTRACT

Teachers play a critical role in child sexual abuse (CSA) prevention and intervention efforts. We examined the impact of the Second Step Child Protection Unit (CPU) on improving teacher awareness, attitudes, and teacher–student relations for 161 teachers. Teacher baseline scores and treatment acceptability were examined as moderators. Structural equation modeling (SEM) revealed a significant effect of the CPU on teachers’ awareness, attitudes, and teacher–student relations, particularly for teachers with lower prior knowledge, attitudes, and student relationships. Teachers’ acceptability of the CPU also moderated outcomes, where a higher level of acceptability of CSA interventions was associated with an increase in outcomes.     

Intercultural literacy dialogue: international assessment moderation in early childhood teacher education

ABSTRACT

This research reports intercultural dialogue of meaning making in literacy by lecturers, engaged with an assessment moderation process of early childhood education (ECE) preservice teacher education across Australia, New Zealand and Sweden. The purpose of the dialogue was to inform pedagogical and conceptual knowledge in their courses. The research question is: How does intercultural dialogue inform teacher education literacy practices? Methods include (1) a blind assessment review process using 30 examples from ‘high’ to ‘low’ exemplars of ECE students’ literacy assessment annotations, some from each country, and (2) textual analysis of intercultural student feedback and reflection from student forum comments and, semi-structured reflexive interviews with students about the assessment moderation process. Rich academic reflections on the data have led to our recommendations that the conceptual framework of intercultural praxis could be applied in early childhood preservice teacher education practice. Further, we suggest there are increased possibilities for the use of intercultural literacy with ECE preservice student teachers using virtual and explicit collaborations and texts as explained in this research.     

With Strength and Struggle: A Teacher's Process of Transforming Science into Multicultural Science. Where is Multicultural Science in Science Education Reform?

This interpretive case study focuses on one middle school science teacher in the United States as she transforms her classroom based on her personal definition of science education that is multicultural. The teacher‐participated in a multicultural science institute over the course of four years which provided a framework for her change process. Critical to the change process was an acceptance of the responsibility to teach science to all students in her diverse classroom. Elements of her change process included incorporating a model of science known as the 3P's, as well as, a focus on multicultural perspectives and cooperative learning. Classroom practices were changed as a result of a complex interaction between her increasing conviction in the academic ability of her students and an evolving perception of science as a social construction.     

Portraits and collaborations: a reflection on the work of Wendy Ewald

This reflection on the work of Wendy Ewald as a photographer, storyteller and teacher highlights Ewald's methodology, her manner of presenting work and her images. First, in describing Ewald's artistic practice, I discuss the innovative ways she collaborates with children, sharing control over the process of visually representing children's lives, their stories and their faces. I also describe her influence as an educator and suggest that researchers as well may benefit from Ewald's approach to exploring individuals' social realities. Next, I propose that Ewald's body of work provides a rich source of material for those interested in the analysis of visual culture. As an example, I focus on Ewald's American Alphabets, which presents four visual alphabets and deals with questions of identity and language. The collaborative images simultaneously address and raise sociological questions and offer a compelling visual example of the confluence of gender, race and social class. I finish with a discussion of Ewald's two latest collaborations—In Peace and Harmony: Carver Portraits in Richmond, Virginia and Towards a Promised Land from Margate, England. In these new works, Ewald places larger‐than‐life portraits in symbolically meaningful public spaces. Her public art involves a complicated and conceptual exploration of context.     

Feeling Northern: ‘heroic women’ in Sally Wainwright’s Happy Valley (BBC One, 2014—)

This article analyses a recent television drama written by Sally Wainwright in order to explore notions of Northernness, gender and class. I consider to what extent Wainwright is expanding and revising current perceptions of the North, and more specifically of Northern women, through an analysis of her recent television programme, Happy Valley. Wainwright’s work shares characteristics of the British social realist television drama from the late 50s, early 60s: they have themes of escape, they use location to say something about their characters and they take viewers on an emotional journey that is related to the social conditions they inhabit. And yet, she is also putting women, who were often on the periphery of social drama, in the centre. Wainwright takes her viewers on a journey that begins with the anger and injustice resonant with the male protagonists of social realism, but as women, this anger and injustice is worked through in terms of the family and eventually leads to a greater sense of commitment to community and the place she comes from, which, in Wainwright’s work, is the North. In so doing, she expands the genre and gives it a female voice. She offers us a sense of what ‘feeling’ Northern is to women, as well as men. Additionally, she is a screenwriter who is speaking from the position of the working-class North; she is intimate to these communities, not a ‘detached observer.’ And yet, despite these inroads, her work has only recently received praise from the British television Industry.     

Paulo Freire in the Composition Classroom

The composition classroom in which students can relate and assess their attitudes and suppositions about sexuality and gender through building on the narrative of their lives, is vital to transforming homophobic attitudes and social structures. Paulo Freire's theories of transformative education and his concept ofpraxishelp to create this classroom. The author discusses how she createspraxisin her classrooms, which she believes is essential to social, legal, and political change: to consolidating and expanding increased equity for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, indeed to all marginalized peoples.     

Finding a Sociological Voice: The Work of Mirra Komarovsky*

This article offers a biographical sketch of Mirra Komarovsky in the framework of an analysis of her work as a researcher, writer, teacher and feminist. It demonstrates how the cultural conflicts that existed while she was a college student laid the foundation for her later sociological research. It also illustrates the particular dynamics of a woman's career in sociology, especially with regard to the influence of social supports on a woman's sense of “finding her voice.” Her work after retirement suggests that this period may have particular significance in the lives of academic women. The theoretical foundation and methodological characteristics of her work are additional foci of this article.     

A Bionian Reading of the Mother in Anne Enright’s The Green Road

ABSTRACT

Anne Enright’s The Green Road (2015a) centers on the mother, Rosaleen. When she leaves her children and her home in the West of Ireland to walk the Green Road, Rosaleen asks herself, “Where did it begin?,” which is “more a cadence than a question” (p. 259). Her journey echoes that described by Wilfred Bion, with reference to Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “like one that on a lonesome road, doth walk in fear and dread” (Bion, 1970, p. 46). Rosaleen is attempting to escape the feeling that she does not exist. As she travels, reality gives way to fantasy as time and space appear to merge. Eventually, she is frightened to turn back because “she had fallen into the gap” (Enright, 2015a, p. 266). This may be read as the emotional state of transformation in O. Bion (1970, p. 43) exhorts us to forget what we think we know: memory, desire, and understanding. Applying this to a consideration of Rosaleen, whose children know her by so many names (“Mammy,” “Mama,” “Ma,” “Rosaleen,” and “Dark Rosaleen”), provides for an exploration, alongside Rosaleen, not of who she was in the past or who we might wish her to be but beyond preconceived ideas of Irish motherhood to a place where new meaning may emerge.