Education

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Open Access
Institutional Strategies and Factors that Contribute to the Engagement of Recent Immigrant Adult Students in Ontario Post-Secondary Education
(2014-07-09) Grabke, Sheldon Vaughn Richard; Axelrod, Paul D.; Theory of participation
The purpose of this study is to provide a unique investigation that yields vital data on barriers experienced by recent immigrant adult students (RIAS), the policies, practices and supports in PSE and their impact on RIAS engagement, and factors that contribute to the engagement of RIAS in Ontario PSE. This examination contributes to and furthers the student engagement in PSE literature by providing an original view into RIAS engagement in PSE. This dissertation involves qualitative and quantitative research methods including 18 key informant interviews, six focus groups, one interview and 434 survey responses as well as historical data, policies, procedures and artifacts at colleges and universities in Ontario. These different methodological attributes bring triangulation of sources and methods into the study. All of the data is analyzed using the student engagement conceptual framework. This study finds that PSE in Ontario seems to know little of the number, type, experiences and engagement of RIAS on campus. This research argues how and why the traditional model of engagement does not apply well to RIAS. Key findings include that RIAS are performing well academically in PSE despite the numerous barriers that they face and their lack of engagement. RIAS strong motivation to complete PSE and their inherent optimism is such that many persist to completion. One fundamental factor contributing to the lack of engagement for RIAS is their minimal social involvement in PSE. Using the findings, this dissertation provides numerous recommendations for changes to institutional policies and procedures to further RIAS engagement. Both academic and social engagement of RIAS in PSE significantly predict the hallmarks of a liberal education. This is a noteworthy reason for PSE to make an investment in the engagement of RIAS in Ontario PSE. This study therefore has implications for theory and practice in PSE in Ontario. Through developing creative ways to remove barriers and augment supports for RIAS in PSE, RIAS may begin to be more engaged in PSE. This noble endeavour can help RIAS more fully develop into engaged citizens and truly assist them in their settlement experience in Ontario.
Open Access
A Rhizoanalysis of the Ontario Science Centre School's Innovation Project
(2014-07-09) Kortenaar, Paul; Morbey, Mary Leigh
This case study research examines the Innovation Project of the Ontario Science Centre Science School, Toronto. This is a formal education institution situated within an informal science centre. Groups of six students each engaged in a semester-long project to design an exhibit for the Ontario Science Centre. These groups were designed to be complex. Qualitative data from interviews, group meetings, and social media postings were collected and analyzed for two groups. A comparatively new analysis technique, rhizoanalysis, was implemented and resulted in physical maps representing the interactions among students as they engaged with the Innovation Project. The conclusions indicate that the Innovation Project design and the leadership of teachers from the formal education sector may have inhibited the students engaging with the Innovation Project fully, as was intended. Nevertheless, rhizoanalysis proved to be an effective way to discover new information about student interactions during group work.
Open Access
What Words Can Do: Analyzing Adult/Child Relations in Narratives of Literature and Psychosocial Theory
(2014-07-09) Angus, Lucille Kathleen; Britzman, Deborah P.
This thesis enters into an analysis of adult/child relations by looking closely at affective social and historical representations of childhood. It asks, how to characterize the self-other relation when the subject is a child. This work is composed of thematic close readings of three primary texts: Piera Aulagnier (2001) introduces the child as being, Jacqueline Rose (1992) presents the enigmatic child, and Carolyn Steedman (1994) traces the spectacle of the child. This thesis grapples with the being of the child, beginning by exploring infancy as a state of dependency that marks growth. I examine the child’s vulnerability that precedes speech and discuss how imperceptible traces of that state intersect with the child’s introduction to symbolization and the words adults use to represent childhood. I turn to examine forms of childhood shaped through fantastical, cultural and historical narratives, questioning the place of the child and adult within those representations.
Open Access
American Sign Language (ASL) Literacy and ASL Literature: A Critical Appraisal
(2014-07-09) Byrne, Andrew Patrick Joseph; Mayer, Connie
While there has been widespread acceptance of American Sign Language (ASL) as the language of instruction in residential schools for native/non-native ASL students and in colleges and universities as a foreign language, there has been little research on defining ASL literacy and ASL literature. In addition, while there has been academic debate on the existence or nonexistence of ASL literacy, there have been no studies that have defined and have described the characteristics of ASL literacy and ASL literature. To fill this void, this study answered the following research questions: (a) At a time when there is increasing recognition of ASL literacy, how would ASL literature be defined? (b) What are the features that characterize ASL literature? (c) What would such a literature comprise (e.g., genres)? To what extent is there a comprehensive taxonomy of genres captured in VHS and DVD publications? (d) What are examples of ASL literary works included in this taxonomy? A qualitative research design is used (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000). The methodology utilized was a cross-case analysis of five interviews (four individual interviews and one focus group interview) using the constant comparison method where the information is categorized into responses (Hewitt-Taylor, 2001). Eight native ASL respondents in the field of ASL and Deaf Studies who are knowledgeable and have expertise with ASL literature were contacted and interviewed. The rationale for this study was that such an investigation of ASL literacy and ASL literature will provide research in the field on this neglected topic. Such a study would have value and importance to the ASL culture and ASL community, who cherish the values embedded in ASL literature, as well as accomplish education goals to instruct native/non-native ASL students with quality ASL literature.
Open Access
"UUDLES" of accountability: A critical ethnographic policy analysis of university teaching work within the context of postsecondary education in Ontario
(2014-07-09) Frake, Mandy Carolyn; Shanahan, Theresa G.
This ethnography explores how the everyday work of university teaching is shaped and organized by quality and accountability policies in higher education. The drive for greater accountability and transparency in Ontario postsecondary education is evident with the implementation of University Undergraduate Degree Level Expectations (UUDLEs).UUDLEs is a policy that has been implemented in the publicly assisted universities of Ontario that has mandated that the work of teaching be articulated through the use of outcomes, expectations, and standards. This research draws upon critical literature on academic restructuring, managerialism, quality assurance, accountability and efficiency reforms, and the political-economy of higher education in Canada. Moreover, the notion of quality is problematized as an empty, nebulous term that cannot be understood or realized without a common and agreed upon conceptualization. Through interviews with faculty, management, seconded faculty members, senate members, individuals in positions of senior management, curriculum committee members, complimented with textual and critical policy analysis, the organization of the work of university teachers is explored to make visible the invisible teaching work of faculty in relationship to higher education accountability policies. I trace UUDLEs from its conception within external governing bodies to its implementation within the Faculty of Education at one university in south western Ontario. This research is part ethnography and part policy analysis, employing tools from both. The study and its findings are framed and analyzed from a critical theoretical perspective. It is grounded in the everyday experiences of university teachers and the policies that influence their teaching work. I make visible the larger social web in which university teachers participate by showing what it is that a university teacher does as a part of a Faculty, and as a university employee, and how higher education policies influence this work. UUDLEs are taken up by university teachers in their work through course development, curriculum planning and evaluation of students learning. In my examination of UUDLEs I consider teaching from the perspective of university teachers working in higher education.
Open Access
Mediating Postcoloniaity in Education: Mis/Representations of Muslim Girls using Technology
(2014-07-09) Dahya, Negin; Jenson, Jennifer, Dr.
In this doctoral research, I explore how social systems and postcolonial cultural norms impact the process and outcome of digital media production created by girls who belong to ethnoracial minority groups living in low-income communities. The study was conducted as a Feminist Ethnography and feminist intervention in a Toronto school over three years, with a focus on Muslim girls in 2011-2012. The purpose of this research is to respond to both the ongoing marginalization of Muslim girls in Canadian schools and to examine how digital media production can be used to bridge ongoing divides between schools and communities in low-income urban and multicultural areas of Canada. Using digital media production to explore student experiences, I identify three topics for analysis that complicate the notion of student “voice.” In this work, I address how sociocultural structures inform the process of digital media production for racialized girls, exploring what kind of meaning can be derived from student-made media and considering how the videos and photos made by Muslim girls are framed within and informed by existing social structures, social expectations, and by the intentions and interests of adults. In addition, I also examine how student concerns over being seen and/or issues related to surveillance impact what they produce (or rather, end up not producing at all). Throughout this dissertation, I also consider how student engagement with different forms of new media and technology allow for varied behaviours and interests to be performed, offering a wider view into their lives. I conclude with a discussion of silence, addressing the importance of what was left absent in the process of making digital media with Muslim girls, and explore how these omissions relate to larger postcolonial power relations, to technology, and to media education for racialized girls in under-resourced schools and communities.
Open Access
"Married, Single, or Gay?" Queerying and Trans-forming the Practices of Assisted Human Reproduction Services
(2014-07-28) Epstein, Rachel; Dippo, Donald A
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer (LGBTQ) people in North America have historically been categorized as “disfavoured reproducers” and, through various legal, social, and political means, have been denied the right to parent. The past 30 years, however, have been marked by staggering social, legal, and political change in relation to LGBTQ families and people across the LGBTQ spectrum in Canada are increasingly making use of Assisted Human Reproduction (AHR) services as part of their family-building processes. However, despite significant gains in social and legal recognition for LGBTQ people in Canada, LGBTQ people are often unhappily marginalized when they seek reproductive assistance and are brought under the rubric of a highly medicalized, profit-making system within which their bodies, and families, most often do not fit. Drawing on 40 qualitative interviews from the CIHR-funded Creating Our Families project, which was designed to explore the experiences of LGBT people with AHR services in Ontario, this dissertation explores the ways that LGBTQ identities and kinship structures are often misrecognized and, in many cases, unintelligible in the fertility clinic context. The assumptions of the heterosexual matrix, in alliance with the culture of the fertility industry, can result in violations or ruptures to the personhood of queer and trans people as they make their way through the clinic. The strategies that people adopt in order to enhance their flow through the clinic can at times contribute to these violations. The dissertation explores the contours of a more ethical relation between LGBTQ people and fertility clinics, and finally, considers some pedagogical issues related to what is at stake when health care providers are asked to adopt a stance of “not-knowing” that recognizes the radical alterity of the Other.
Open Access
Decolonizing Institutional Practices: Supporting Aboriginal College Student Success
(2015-01-26) Blanchard, Mary Patricia; Haig-Brown, E. Celia
The Aboriginal population is the fastest growing segment of the Canadian population. As a result, it is essential to increase Aboriginal participation in post-secondary studies and persistence to completion. To accomplish these goals, it is necessary to rethink how post-secondary institutions support Aboriginal students and to make them feel welcome and that they belong. This dissertation takes an in-depth look at the experiences of Aboriginal students at a northern Ontario college. It examines the challenges faced by students as they prepare for and complete their studies. It identifies the significance of cultural safety and support in overcoming feelings of loneliness and isolation, and explores the role of family and community encouragement in helping students persist to graduation. It also discusses the role of faculty relationships and the need for institutional commitment in creating an environment that acknowledges and includes Aboriginal worldviews, traditions and cultures. This qualitative study explores the experiences of seventeen students. The outcomes of the study provides guidance to post-secondary institutions in three key areas: promising practices to improve Aboriginal student outcomes; successful approaches to conducting culturally intelligent research; and the significance of Indigenizing the college through generative discussion with individuals local to the institution. The dissertation suggests the use of generative discussion to Indigenize an institution has great potential as a transformative change tool.
Open Access
Interrogating Discourse of "At Risk": An Examination of the Social, Political, and Educational Impact of High School Gay-Straight Alliances
(2015-01-26) Stefan, Abby Jane; Khayatt, Didi
This thesis investigates the experiences of five faculty advisors of high school Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs) within Ontario, Canada. Drawing on perspectives of critical pedagogy, queer theory, and critical discourse analysis, I investigated the potential of these student organizations to challenge heteronormative school cultures that label LGBTQ students as an “at risk” population in need of “safe spaces.” Data were collected from in-depth, semi-structured interviews with faculty advisors, including two one-to-one interviews, one email interview, and one focus group interview. This research not only illustrates how top-down discourses of “risk” and “safe spaces” regulate the policies and practices deemed appropriate for GSAs, but also the possibility for bottom-up discourses of student and teacher resistance to school-based heteronormative ideologies. I conclude with a discussion of how to move GSAs beyond the “safe space” discourse into one where a critical and social justice framework may initiate a school-wide conversation on LGBTQ student rights.
Open Access
Junior and Intermediate Educators' Perceptions of Play Pedagogy: Informing Future Policy Creation & Implementation
(2015-01-26) Kelly, Jacqueline Patricia; Murphy, Sharon M.
Play-based instruction has become the guiding framework of Ontario’s Full-Day Kindergarten curriculum; however, the benefits of playful learning have yet to be extended into higher elementary grades. Through semi-structured interviews, this qualitative study involves an investigation into twelve Junior (grades four to six) and Intermediate (grades seven and eight) teachers’ perceptions of play pedagogy and its implementation into classroom practice. A grounded theory approach to data analysis uncovers a detailed depiction of teachers’ local knowledge base and current cognitive schemas, from which recommendations for policy creation and implementation are conceived. As a Prospective Policy Analysis, this research strives to take into account Ontario’s current educational context so as to minimize discrepancies between actual and desired results of a future play policy for grades four through eight.
Open Access
The Native Speaker as an Othering Construct: Negotiating a Hybrid Third Space Identity Within a Binary Framework
(2015-01-26) Merecoulias, Maria Nectaria; Schecter, Sandra Ruth
Within an English-speaking cosmopolitan context, the hybrid identity negotiations of 12 international people were examined. The purpose was to view the processes that influence participants’ perceptions and the positive attributes they associate with being in a third space. The understandings were organized under the categories: language, culture and identity. The most salient theory utilized is from Homi Bhabha’s The Location of Culture. Central texts include Canagarajah, Myhill, Bourdieu and Schecter among others. Analyses revealed that respondents’ ability to flexibly compartmentalize elements of diversity in language and culture allowed them to maintain a strong core identity. Findings elucidate the importance of choice in participants’ navigation of their third space identity, by using characteristics of hybridity to their advantage. By analyzing successful third space engagements, it maybe possible to transfer elements of individuals’ traverse to immigrant and refugee high school students struggling with acculturation.
Open Access
Be(coming) the Change You Want to See in the World: Social Justice Teacher Education as Affective Craft
(2015-01-26) Airton, Lee James Elizabeth; Brushwood-Rose, Chloe
This dissertation begins from the difficulty faced by the field of social justice teacher education (SJTE) in setting itself apart from other aspects of teacher education. SJTE’s history of internal and external evidence pressures has distracted the field from reckoning with ‘social justice’ as a moving horizon and not a static outcome against which it can be found effective. If ‘social justice’ cannot be the outcome holding SJTE together and apart from other kinds of teacher education, how does SJTE work? To answer this question, I use Deleuzo-Guattarian and affect theories to position SJTE as an assemblage: an ever-becoming whole composed of the relations among its non-sovereign yet affecting/affected components. In the first analytical chapter, I assemble what SJTE is, does and wants by analyzing 58 field-defining texts. Regardless of what SJTE may say about itself, the field is characterized by an affective capacity to inhabit irresolvable tensions; this capacity expresses assemblage becoming and, therefore, an incremental conception of social change. The second and third analytical chapters analyze the SJTE-assemblage at the level of everyday life. Through multi-sensory fieldwork at education conferences and experimental conversations with practitioners, I tracked moments of intensity bordering on rupture. These were frequently events unthinkable among ‘equity experts’ yet recalling familiar forms of student resistance. In the second chapter, I investigate what happens at these thresholds where SJTE threatens to come apart. In the third chapter, I assemble an emergent theory of resistance that challenges prevailing conceptions of SJTE practice ‘gone wrong.’ My findings reveal the implicit ways in which SJTE reckons with ‘social justice’ as a moving horizon. Although SJTE tends toward political and conceptual rigidity, I identified its enacted and unspoken flexibility in how e.g., race or sexuality can emerge otherwise in everyday life. This capacity of openness to the surprises of social difference or difference-to-come is a pivotal yet unnamed contribution of the field that is expressed in its craft. I conclude by envisioning how SJTE might explicitly attend to depth – the sovereign political will of teachers as agents of social change – and surface: what is affective, implicit and pre-personal.
Open Access
An Aesthetic Education: Conceptualizing Education through Contemporary Artists and their Work
(2015-01-26) Bourke, Melanie Michelle; Britzman, Deborah P.
This dissertation inquires into a theory of learning through an examination of the intersection of art and education. With the work of educational theorists who explore how art may call our attention to the conflicts and contradictions that reside in education, the dissertation asks how we might understand an education that requires intervention. Drawing upon Adorno’s philosophical theories of negativity and aesthetics and psychoanalytic theories, I suggest that an analysis of the relationship between art and education can be furthered through the study of contemporary artists and their works. The focus is on the visual and written works of Kara Walker, Christian Boltanski, and Roee Rosen. Three tensions are explored: 1) that education resides in the realm of both social discourse and psychical life; 2) that education is composed from its limitations and possibilities; and, 3) disruption in a theory of learning is both a necessity and a new problem. The dissertation argues that the relationship between art and education constitutes a theory of learning that is also a delicate balance between the disruption of conflicted conditions and the re-construction of new ideas. Further, it is a theory where learning cannot be anticipated, but instead only reported on in retrospect. Learning therefore involves the paradox that a possibility for new understandings comes at the risk of a failure to understand.
Open Access
What's in a Name? Name Choice, Agency, and Identity
(2015-01-26) Gellatly, Katherine Patricia Mary; Krasny, Karen A.
This qualitative study addresses name choice among Chinese/Chinese-heritage students at two Ontario universities by asking if identity perception impacts the decision to maintain/change a name and who has agency in these naming choices. Ten out of the 11 participants opted for name change. Six participants attributed English name change to their teachers/education system in China; four asserted full agency in name choice; five were told to choose an English name, but selected their own; and two participants claimed no agency in either change or choice. Based on a grounded theory analysis, social and cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1992), Chinese naming habitus within a Canadian field (Bourdieu, 1984), and agency emerged as strong themes. Through these themes, participants’ negotiation of the third space (Bhabha, 1994) became apparent. This study suggests a need for teachers to gain cultural onomastic awareness so as to respect naming choices and agency of students in Canadian classrooms.
Open Access
Methodological Reflections on Italian-Canadian Storytelling
(2015-01-26) Colussi-Arthur, Gabriella Silvia; Visano, Livy A.
This dissertation considers existing methodological practices in the collection of Italian-Canadian immigrant family narratives and focuses on a number of immigrant family stories recounted by my Northern Italian, Friulian-born parent-informants as collected from my role as a trilingual daughter-as-researcher. After reflecting on aspects of qualitative methodology that deal with collecting narratives at large, I present a triangulated, interconnected model that I call Breadth, Depth, and Form, based on three foundational approaches: life history, narrative inquiry and oral history. Breadth contextualizes my informants across time and space; depth allows me to focus on my informants as individual and reflect of the narrative meaning for my informants; form allows me to recognize and document the authentic, original language(s) of the narratives themselves. Chapter One examines the foundational aspects of my methodology and introduces my triangulated approach with a series of methodological considerations; Chapter Two presents the field of Italian migration and ethnic studies most pertinent to my work; Chapter Three describes the scholarship on Friulian immigration to North America and provides a brief overview of the history of Friulian language and its place in the diaspora. Chapter Four explores my position as daughter-as-researcher (DAR) and provides detailed reflections on my role as insider; Chapter Five culminates with an analysis of my informants’ narratives based on content and form.
Open Access
Exploring the Experiences and Understanding of Clinical Judgement of IENs Transitioning to Nursing Practice in Ontario
(2015-01-26) Peisachovich, Eva.; Shanahan, Theresa G.
Clinical judgment is increasingly discussed in the nursing education literature as it is critical to the development of professional knowledge, and it provides a structure for the reasoning necessary for nursing practice today. It is well indicated in the literature that a significant number of novice practitioners in health care do not meet entry-to-practice expectations for clinical judgment and have difficulty transferring knowledge and theory into practice—regardless of educational preparation and credentials. Internationally Educated Nurses (IENs) are also considered novice practitioners in the Ontario health-care environment. The purpose of the study was to explore IENs’ experience and understanding of clinical judgment when engaged in a simulated clinical environment. The research question guiding the study was, What is the experience and understanding of clinical judgment of IENs when engaged in High Fidelity Patient Simulation (HFPS) and stimulated recall and reflective practice? The research employs qualitative descriptive, open-ended exploratory and interpretive methods informed by constructivism and transformative learning theories. Qualitative research seeks to understand and explain participant meaning. The participants in this study were four IENs, aged 27–37, who were attending a university academic bridging program. They participated in a) a preliminary interview to collect data regarding their demographics and information associated with their educational, clinical, and professional background; b) three interactive simulated clinical activities comprising of high-fidelity SimMan™ manikins; and c) three stimulated recall sessions followed by three focus groups. The interactive simulated activities were videotaped and stimulated recall and focus groups were audiotaped. Tanner’s Model of Clinical Judgment was used to guide this process. The thematic analysis uncovered six themes pertaining to IEN’s experience and understanding of clinical judgment: the shift from expert to novice, the need to rethink cultural competence and culturally competent care, the acknowledgement that culture and diversity are integral to understanding clinical judgment, the role of communication as a means to understanding clinical judgment, the recognition of unlearning as a way to understanding clinical judgment, and the phenomenon of unknowing as a dimension of understanding clinical judgment. The concepts of reflection-beyond-action and intercultural fluency emerged as implications for the teaching and learning of IENs.
Open Access
Thinking Through the (M)other: Reading Women's Memoirs of Learning
(2015-01-26) Harrison, Mary Joyce; Gilbert, Jennifer
In this dissertation I examine the dilemma that for a girl to become a separate and thinking self she must at once identify with and repudiate her mother. Reading closely psychoanalytic theories of learning, language, gender, and subjectivity, I demonstrate that a girl’s capacity to think and symbolize begins in an infantile and conflicted relation to her mother. I inquire into how this dilemma complicates the affective stakes of the intellectual life for women, arguing that this conflict at the origin of thinking and symbolization puts the intellectual woman at risk of estrangement from her own gendered identifications. To study the dimensions of this problem, and to consider how it haunts the conflicts women confront in their work in the university, I examine academic women’s memoirs published in and around the “Memoir Boom” of the 1990s (Gilmore, 2001; Miller, 1997). I employ psychoanalytic and symptomatic reading to notice how each memoir I’ve chosen tells a story about the ambivalence at the heart of a woman’s commitment to a life of the mind (Britzman, 2009; Gallop, 1992). Psychoanalytic theories of matricide, reparation, and entrance into language organize my readings of the memoirs. I argue that the memoirs both describe and enact the academic woman’s gendered dilemma, the paradox of identification and repudiation that structures a woman’s capacity to think, read, and write. With this study I contribute to feminist conversations about women in higher education by insisting that the vicissitudes of the inner life affect women’s sense of belonging and ‘at-home-ness’ in the academy. I argue that since the capacity to think is haunted by the first conflict that the mother’s otherness poses for the self, women – including, or even especially, feminist scholars – cannot solve the problem of conflict through thinking. Instead, we must examine how the conflicts originating in the inner life organize our objects of intellectual inquiry. To demonstrate this point, I consider how my own subjective history of aggression and gratitude inform the dissertation itself.
Open Access
Living Here with Lessons From There: Cosmopolitan Conversations After an International Service-Learning Trip
(2015-08-28) Khalid, Mateen Mohammad; Yon, Daniel
This research looks at four participants’ identity formation 3 years after their international service-learning (ISL) trip to Kenya. It focuses on life after ISL and the challenges of translating lessons learned abroad into meaningful action upon return. In the process, it speaks to participants’ struggles in resisting social conformity, conflicts with opinions of friends and family, consequences of challenging the status quo, ambivalent and contradictory commitments, and cosmopolitan identity formation attaching them to multiple global locations beyond the local. Findings are threefold: 1) ISL trips provided experiences, stories, relationships, challenges, and opportunities that contribute to various identity narratives; 2) struggles and conflicts experienced upon return destabilized participants’ sense of identity leading to, 3) an embodied cosmopolitan identity. Implications of these findings suggest educators recognize both the challenges and opportunities students may face when confronting hegemonic norms post-ISL.
Open Access
New Epistemologies in a Digital Age: Ways of Knowing Beyond Text-Based Literacy in Young Adult Learners Within An Ontario College Context
(2015-08-28) Pitts, Kevin C.; Owston, Ron
The purpose of this study was to examine how young adult learners acquire and construct knowledge in a digital age within a post-secondary context. The research questions were: 1) What digital devices and technologies/tools do young adult learners use for learning and why? 2) How is the digital age (particularly the widespread use of the Internet) impacting knowledge acquisition and construction in young adult learners? 3) How should post-secondary educational curricula and practice be designed or re-designed to support young adult learners? A mixed methods (convergent parallel design) study was conducted involving 63 student participants (18 to 24 years of age) attending a large urban community college in Ontario. Analysis of the data revealed five key themes: 1) participants identified and used go-to digital devices and tools (i.e., digital devices and tools participants preferred and opted to use first); 2) participants used a multiplicity of media, modes, and literacies in their learning; 3) participants valued the affordances of old and new educational practices and thus felt to be in a state of transition; 4) participants’ use of multiple media, modes, and literacies led to positive sum outcomes (i.e., increased capacity for learning); and 5) the mix of media, modes, and literacies used by participants resulted in more natural learning (i.e., learning that was more in keeping with participants’ natural ways of engaging in and perceiving the world around them). Another key finding was that although there were commonalities among participants, there also existed a great deal of individual difference in terms of the ways participants preferred to learn in a digital age. Interpretation of the findings resulted in a re-conceptualization of meta-literacy. In the context of this study meta-literacy was defined as the set of literacy types that meet the following criteria: 1) use a dominant invention/technology; 2) are disseminated via a dominant medium; 3) are represented by a dominant mode; 4) appeal to a dominant sense (or senses); and 5) provide for the ability to consume and produce meaningful communicative artifacts via a dominant medium and mode. Orality, traditional literacy, and digital literacy were identified as literacy types meeting the above criteria. It is recommended that meta-literacy, in conjunction with other relevant frameworks, be considered in the design or re-design of college curricula.
Open Access
Planetary Praxes and Sustainable Universities
(2015-08-28) Bentley, Christopher Michael; Alsop, Steven John
What is sustainability in Higher Education (HE)? How should it be represented? Who gets to decide? This thesis offers a response to a particular technocratic and teleological way of thinking about sustainability in Higher Education, which has a series of high profile advocates in theory and policy. In contrast, my study explores two particular sustainability projects (Energy Management Project and Local Food) at a large Canadian suburban university campus. Using a grounded theory/situational analysis approach, I represent these two projects as dynamically bound praxes (shaped by a series of actors and imaginaries). Results: given the historical exigency and contention surrounding sustainability since the mid-90s, a multiplicity of actors in the Keele campus, both semiotic and material, have moved into positions to transform its demarcated boundaries therein. As I have begun to map these movements, I suggest this work be continued by future researchers in a position to do so.