Deepening Our Practitioner Inquiry Stance Through Indigenous Epistemologies of Relationality

• In Event: 29.080 - Through the Lens of Teacher Research: Building Bridges Toward a Critical and Equitable Future

Abstract

Practitioner inquiry has challenged empirical and positivist views of knowledge in educational research by recognizing knowledge is co-constructed between students and teacher-researchers. The central concern of our paper addresses how practitioner researchers might learn about relationality from Indigenous epistemologies in order to tighten the framing of relationships in teacher research. Within an Indigenous Methodologies paradigm, knowledge is grounded and held within relationships, and relationality constitutes a belief that the cosmos is made up of a set of connections between all living things. As such, this paper examines our trajectories as classroom teachers and doctoral students, tracing how we have come to conceptualize the inclusion of Indigenous Methodologies as a necessary next step for the field of practitioner inquiry.

Authors

• Daniela Bascuñán, Toronto District School Board 

• Velta Douglas, University of Toronto