Cultivating Equity Through Living Educational Theory Cultures of Educational Inquiry in a Canadian/Global Context

• In Event: Cultivating Equitable Education Systems Through Living Educational Theory Cultures of Educational Inquiry

Abstract

1. Objectives or purposes

The objectives include addressing the research question ‘What kinds of teaching and learning processes foster equity, disrupt systemic inequality, and deepen learning?’ They include action research, evidence-based explanations of the educational influences of practitioner-researcher mentees. These show how environments of impoverishment and inequity can be transformed through offering global mentoring in safe, democratic cultures of inquiry (Author,2013).

2. Perspective(s) or theoretical framework

The main perspective in this presentation is provided by the theme of “Cultivating Equitable Education Systems for the 21st Century” in which educational researchers are activist scholars and global citizens in their contexts.

At the heart of the Living Educational Theory (Whitehead, 1989) is the perspective that the development of a culture of inquiry rests upon supporting the knowledge-creating capacity in each individual in the system.

3. Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry

The living truths of action research educational researchers draw on the perspectives outlined by Tidwell, Heston and Fitzgerald (2009) on research methods and Rowell (2017) on knowledge democracy and by Riel (2021) in Action Research Tutorials.

Digital visual technology is used to ‘bridge divides of economic capital through digitally‐mediated education that connects rural and urban students to rich educational resources outside the classroom walls’ (Tierney & Renn, 2012, p.2). A method of ‘empathetic resonance’ using digital technology is introduced to clarify the meanings of the expression of embodied values and energy that contribute to the explanatory principles of educational influences in learning.

4. Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials

Data sources include the action research narratives of practitioner-researchers that have been mentored and who have created their own living-educational-theories. Evidence is also drawn from publications in Educational Action Research (2020), The Action Learning, Action Research Journal (2020) and the Educational Journal of Living Theories (2020). Dialogue as research (Author, 2020) are seminal to the evidence.

5. Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view

The author has encouraged and supported the generation of educational knowledge that is addressing inequities in education. The dialogic nature of the research shows how loving educational conversations, grounded in values that carry hope for human flourishing, can contribute to overcoming the demoralisation and devaluation of economic rationalism in hopeful and loving processes of social transformation.

6.Significance

Scholarly significance is in offering evidence-based explanations of the educational influences of practitioner-researchers to show how environments of impoverishment and inequity can be transformed.

The scientific significance is focused on “utilizing new forms of data and data analytics” in the methods of dialogue as research method, digital visual data and empathetic resonance to clarify and communicate the meanings of the embodied expressions of the values are used as explanatory principles in explanations of educational influences in learning.

The co-learning among the author, her mentees and the session group as they create new ways of ‘understanding and redressing educational inequalities and building systems that embrace equity and justice that realize the full potential of people and communities’ is significant.

Author

• Jacqueline D. Delong, International Mentor