Unconference as Homeplace for Educational Change Making

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 4:20 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 4
  In Roundtable Session: Youth (Un)Conference and Testimonio as Educational Research (Table 2)

Abstract

Using a case study of an annual conference held at a Toronto university for school board educators, community members and university scholars, this paper will analyze how the unconference or non-traditional conference approach impacts collective organizing and educational knowledge mobilization. As co-chairs of the conference for the last two years, the authors will explore how the unconference acts as a bridge between educational theory and educational practice, challenges the colonial and institutional model of the conference as a site of learning, and fosters spaces that allow for activism to flourish under conditions of care. Using Black feminist thought, Afrocentric thought, and research-creation, we examine the rebuilding of the conference that acts as a Homeplace for educational knowledge mobilization.

Authors

• Monica Tang, York University

• Myrtle Sodhi, York University