25.056 - Reconfiguring the Imagined and Real Futures of Educational Research: The Importance of Being Speculative

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Thinking speculatively is a material practice that is imaginative and creative, and potentially emancipatory. The “Importance of Being Speculative” panel speculates on what speculative thinking can do for education in a more-than-human world through four papers on: i) the nonhuman findings from the “laboratory of speculative sociology” in Manchester, England ii) a speculative fiction writing project with high school students in Cardiff, Wales iii) a discussion of experimental art practices in Toronto, Canada that re-imagines climate change through speculative art, and iv) de-centering childhood as an adult concept, to reconstruct how childhood is shaped by children through the lens of speculative philosophy and the use of children’s books. These projects will demonstrate what speculation offers methodology, pedagogy, and educational research.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Qualitative Research

Chair

• Sarah E. Truman, University of Toronto - OISE

Papers

• Findings From the Laboratory of Speculative Sociology - Elizabeth De Freitas, Manchester Metropolitan University

• Invisible Cities: Reading and Writing Speculative Fictions in High Schools - Sarah E. Truman, University of Toronto - OISE

• We Are Weather: Reimagining Climate Change Through Speculative Art - Stephanie Springgay, OISE/University of Toronto

• The Ontology of Speculating Childhoods - Marek Tesar, The University of Auckland