"Through Participatory Eyes": Questioning Constructions of Space and Time in Educational Program Evaluation

• In Event: Millennium Hotel Roundtable Session 5
  In Roundtable Session: Re-making kinds of selves rationality, bureaucracy, morality

Abstract

How can we take up notions of space and time methodologically through participatory program evaluation? In this paper, we examine instances in which varying constructs of space, place, and time lead to markedly different conclusions about the “success” of a school in the Williche territories of South America. Concepts of time and space are significant for many Indigenous languages and cultures many of which do not differentiate between them in the same ways that these are encoded in western language and truth regimes (Tuhiwai Smith, 1999). We draw from interview and focus group data to analyze how negotiating these constructs illustrate the importance of participatory evaluation methodologies, particularly in colonial contexts.

Authors

• Elena VanderDussen Toukan, University of Toronto

• Daniela Bascuñán, Toronto District School Board 

• Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández, OISE/University of Toronto