Promoting Inclusion: Reframing to regenerate transformative educational research

Registration for the Workshop is free, but as places are limited you need to sign up. For a more detailed description of the workshop and for registration please visit our <link https: www.eventbrite.com e _blank> eventbrite registration site.

As educational researchers we work against the backdrop of unremitting educational reform, often marked by ‘symbolic compliance’ (Skrtic, 1991; Skrtic, 2005) and unfunded mandates (McPhillips, Hyland, Kenny & Shevlin, 2017, in press). We need a range of diverse capacities to strengthen our research effectiveness in promoting social transformation—to inform educational policy and practice (Gardner, 2011; Moore, 2012) and improve the lives of children, families and communities, particularly in disenfranchised populations (Hempenstall, 2006; Artiles, Kozleski & Waitoller, 2011; Mccall & Skrtic, 2009). However, in this time of rising populism, researcher credibility is challenged, including among the populations we strive to champion.

Where do we go from here? What kinds of practices can grow our scholarship capacities to promote inclusive education? How can we leverage our international connections to enhance our cultural competencies and agency for change?

To have transformative impact in the current social and education reform contexts, to hear and be heard by those with and for whom we work, we must engage in the complex project of reframing and repositioning our constructions of ourselves and other stakeholders in our research. This aligns with an inclusive vision of purposes and responsibilities for research and researchers (Denzin, Lincoln & Smith, 2008).

This interactive participatory workshop, led by an international team of scholars (from Australia, Europe and the United States), swivels the researcher’s “gaze” 360 degrees to examine habits of thinking and practice we [re]produce and are [re]produced by (hooks, 2014; Arao & Clemens, 2013).

Our objectives are three-fold:

• To create a “brave space” (hooks, 1994) in which to enhance collective critical consciousness using reflexive and reframing practices.
• To excavate paradigms, positions and perspectives we adopt and assume to ask “where does power play out here?”
• To critique the affordances and constraints of reflexivity and reframing practices as capacity-building tools against the backdrop (and sometimes against the grain) of educational reform and public discourse.

Requirements
Ideally, participants would bring their laptops.

Contact person
Alice Brown

Workshop co-chairs