Researching to Un-Know: Postformal Possibilities for Reparative Justice and Restorative Practices in/through Educational Research

Multiple Presenter Session: Panel

Abstract

This panel session features the works of scholars employing postformal theory and methodology to destabilize the foundations of educational research and un-know harmful discourses that reproduce inequity and harm. Panelists explore the potential of postformal thinking for un-knowing in curriculum studies, creative and collaborative community work, experiential learning, and the lived experiences of Black women and girls in racialized and gendered spaces of oppression. Authors take up the questions: how does postformal research help us to un-know; how does unknowing point toward intersectional justice, preparing us to do reparative and restorative work? By attending to etymology, pattern, process, context and researcher humility, the authors in this session demonstrate how postformalism disrupts neopositivist logic that reinscribes linear and reductionist thinking and maintains systems of domination in society and schools. They offer alternative pathways toward expansive knowledge generation that spans disciplinary boundaries, bends space-time, and reframes conversations around research methods and ethics.

Sub Track

• AESA

Presenters

• Robert Lake, Georgia Southern University

• Kelly Elizabeth Bare, Molloy College

• Kathryn L. Smith, Independent researcher

• Tricia M Kress, Molloy College

• Meredith Reed, University of San Francisco

• Melisa Chioma Rousseau, Molloy University

• Eric Karahalis, Molloy University