Partners Learning Through Place: Researching the Facilitation and Impact of Experiential and Place-Based Education Within a School-University Partnership

• In Event: Understandings of Family and Community Connections

Abstract

The purpose of our research is to investigate how educators’ experiences in field studies with community partners can inform an interdisciplinary educational program based on a curriculum of place. However, many Indigenous scholars are replacing the term place with land and argue that land-based pedagogies promote the decolonization of education. One challenge with land-based pedagogies is the role non-Indigenous peoples have in this approach to the decolonization of education. Learning from place emphasizes a relationship with the land something deeply respected in Indigenous communities and something absent from much of place-based education. Our research explores this tension and seeks to close this gap by considering varying perspectives of place as it informs community education partnerships and teacher education pedagogy.

Author

• Kevin O'Connor, Mount Royal University