Fostering Knowledge-Building Communities to Advance Epistemic Justice in Schools (Poster 6)

• In Event: Rising Education Scholars Interrogating Research-Practice Partnerships in Pursuit of Truth and Justice

Abstract

Education has been tied to society’s epistemic commitments when it comes to what counts as knowledge and whose knowledge should be taught in schools. If the goal of education research is to interrogate the status quo and develop capacity to disrupt historically shaped inequities, teaching must be centered around epistemic justice. That is, educational stakeholders must engage in critical reflexivity to “gain epistemic access and develop epistemic agency” (Walker, 2019) so they may work together to transform knowledge structures and redistribute access to (cultural) knowledge in schools. Examples include promoting epistemic diversity, developing curriculum from a broader canon of knowledge, giving students epistemic credit for their ideas, and teachers sharing epistemic authority with community members (Kotzee, 2017).
The current study explores how an research-practice partnership in Canada is designed to disrupt racial power relations and evolve axiological norms to enable higher levels of epistemic agency for teachers and students – ultimately, advancing epistemic justice in schools. As part of the “Advancing Knowledge for Public Good” initiative (Resendes et al., 2022), school teams are implementing a pedagogical approach that repositions students as epistemic agents during the knowledge-building process (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2014) to investigate global issues, with regular meetings throughout the 2022-2023 school year to synthesize findings across sites.
Currently, one cluster of sites is engaged in building knowledge on climate change and sustainable agriculture. This case study focuses on one site in Ontario where participants are committed to challenging immigrant settler colonialism through “build[ing] and rebuild[ing] relationships between and among Indigenous peoples, communities of colour and others in Canada on the basis of mutual respect for and recognition of each other’s rights and rightful place within Canada” (OCASI, 2017). Toward this end, researchers, teachers, and students will connect with Indigenous elders and local experts to design and develop a school-wide urban garden using hydroponic systems. Students will maintain and harvest these gardens using Indigenous farming practices and investigate ways to use, consume, and share the produce with their community to promote healthy and sustainable eating habits; excess plants and produce will be shared with families and local food banks. School events, such as the fall harvest and winter solstice, will provide opportunities to bring knowledges, traditions, and practices of Indigenous elders and immigrant families to the forefront and strengthen relationships in the school community. The experiences of members of the school community will be documented in a “Community Knowledge” wall for artifact analyses, followed by qualitative analyses of interviews (Creswell, 2014) with administrators, teachers, and students.
A priority for the upcoming school year is to rebuild the community and strengthen relationships with families to overcome mental health and academic challenges brought on by the pandemic (Darling-Hammond, 2022). Equally important is our commitment to epistemic justice – ensuring that students’ ideas occupy a central place in the classroom – and sustaining efforts to develop culturally-relevant and locally-informed curricular practices toward reconciliation (Cooper, 2020). Our findings will complement discussions around axiological heteroglossia and heterogeneous toolkits in education research (Bang et al., 2016; Gutiérrez, 2016).

Author

• Leanne Ma, University of Toronto
  Presenting Author