In the nation of Belize, and in particular the south side of Belize City, the main metropolitan a... more In the nation of Belize, and in particular the south side of Belize City, the main metropolitan area of the nation, significant economic disparities have led to child and adolescent exposure to high rates of violent crime, gang activity, unsafe neighborhoods, sexual, and physical violence. Problems associated with poor Social-Emotional Character Development are especially prevalent among boys. Consequently, valid culture-relevant measures are required that identify problematic behavior for policy-based intervention and evaluation of educational programs designed to ameliorate this problem. The present study demonstrates the application of Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling to existing measures through the investigation of structural validity and generalizability of the Social-Emotional and Character Development Scale with a large sample of children from schools in Belize (N = 1,877, Ages 10–13). Exploratory structural equation modeling results demonstrate the original factor c...
Principles of Transversality in Globalization and Education, 2018
Felix Guattari’s concepts were evolved in practical situations, often working with groups to chan... more Felix Guattari’s concepts were evolved in practical situations, often working with groups to change their situation. Transversality was one of his earliest conceptions (Guattari in psychoanalysis and transversality: texts and interviews 1955–1971. Semiotext(e), South Pasadena, 2015) and was designed to enhance communication between parties and to transform group dynamics. This chapter takes the concept of transversality as an educational thought, capable of dealing with aspects of globalization such as the loss of identity in a global capitalist situation and asks the questions: (1) How can we enact transversality for educational contexts such as Australia and Iran, and thus to help us understand globalization? (2) Further, what are the practical steps to perform transversality in education across international borders? (3) What are the possible contradictions/paradoxes in the application of transversality to globalized educational contexts? This chapter will look at the different contexts for education in Australia and Iran that have been chosen due to their relationships with capitalism. The key terms of analysis of these educational contexts for the chapter will be ‘constraint’ and ‘desire’ in both locations. The notion of transversality was invented by Guattari against the backdrop of and in Lacanian psychoanalysis, and the key differences between Lacanian psychoanalysis and Guattarian transversality will guide the unpacking of constraint and desire in Australian and Iranian teaching and learning contexts.
When analysing authoritarianism in pedagogy, one is immediately faced with a question: How real i... more When analysing authoritarianism in pedagogy, one is immediately faced with a question: How real is the authoritarianism that one is describing? There is an inevitable «loop» or mode of reciprocation between the object of investigation; i.e. authoritarianism, and one’s own subjective projections about what authoritarianism is, how one has felt it in the past, and connected it to education. Certainly, societies in the West have, in general, changed in their attitudes to pedagogic authoritarianism since the 1960s and 1970s, perhaps under the influence of the mores of post-War, mass education. This article takes two paths of explication to these changes, one through the combined work of Deleuze andand Guattari, the other through the critical realism of Roy Bhaskar. The theoretical and intellectual work of Deleuze andand Guattari points to and makes plain the ways in which authoritarianism in education is continually under threat and being undermined by a myriad of «minor» forces, for ex...
ABSTRACT This article is an up-dated version of Gordon Brown's ontological approach to educat... more ABSTRACT This article is an up-dated version of Gordon Brown's ontological approach to education. It tests the hypothesis that Roy Bhaskar's critical realism can successfully underpin education by applying it to: (1) curriculum; (2) pedagogy; and (3) assessment. It argues that critical realism provides an inter-disciplinary praxis, built around science, sociology and metaphysics, which can be taken up by educationalists to enhance their agency and produce positive knowledge cultures in their every day practices. Therefore Bhaskar's critical realism can unify those streams of educational thought that tend to create divisions which impede the development of knowledge cultures, and limit agency.
Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 2019
This article will investigate the philosophy of science of Roy Bhaskar (1944–2014) as a coherent ... more This article will investigate the philosophy of science of Roy Bhaskar (1944–2014) as a coherent basis for environmental education. The work of Bhaskar serves as an in-depth approach to understanding how to apply critical realism (the critical and the realist) to matters such as environmental education, because he concretely theorises the connections between science, social change and metaphysics. By mobilising key Bhaskarian motifs — that is, the primacy of ontology over epistemology, the laminated system as a means to understand reality, the ways in which inquiry may be organised through the real, actual and the empirical, and the positive application of dialectics — this article constructs a new approach to environmental education and positions it in the field of environmental education by comparing it to posthumanism and the new materialisms. This article contains inquiry-based study outlines for enhanced thinking around: (1) climate change and social justice; (2) movements towa...
International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 2017
Abstract This article will explore the increasing interest in the application of the philosophy o... more Abstract This article will explore the increasing interest in the application of the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari and Alfred North Whitehead to educational research, for example, as a conceptual underpinning for inquiry in the new materialisms, and/or educational posthumanism. The exploration of this paper is complicated by the fact that Deleuze and Guattari changed their philosophical position in their dual publications, with, for example, their last book: What is Philosophy? representing a substantial departure from their rhizomatic work in, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. This article will explain the changes in position with reference to the mapping of conceptual ecologies that Deleuze and Guattari are describing through their philosophy, and not dualism. Concept creation appears in the analysis of Western philosophy in: What is Philosophy? and as the job of philosophy. In contrast, A Thousand Plateaus presents a whole raft of interrelated concepts that help explain the connections between capitalism and schizophrenia, but do not present ‘concept creation’ as a positive task as such, even though one could impute that they are successfully doing it. This article will explain these changes in positioning of Deleuze and Guattari as a mode of sophisticated conceptual ecology, which takes into account the work that they want their concepts to perform. Transcribed to educational research, ‘concept creation’ is an importantly non-methodological task, which is augmented and expanded with reference to the metaphysics of Whitehead’s process philosophy (a non-method), and how it has been taken up, for example, by Isabelle Stengers in terms of research positioning and science.
In the nation of Belize, and in particular the south side of Belize City, the main metropolitan a... more In the nation of Belize, and in particular the south side of Belize City, the main metropolitan area of the nation, significant economic disparities have led to child and adolescent exposure to high rates of violent crime, gang activity, unsafe neighborhoods, sexual, and physical violence. Problems associated with poor Social-Emotional Character Development are especially prevalent among boys. Consequently, valid culture-relevant measures are required that identify problematic behavior for policy-based intervention and evaluation of educational programs designed to ameliorate this problem. The present study demonstrates the application of Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling to existing measures through the investigation of structural validity and generalizability of the Social-Emotional and Character Development Scale with a large sample of children from schools in Belize (N = 1,877, Ages 10–13). Exploratory structural equation modeling results demonstrate the original factor c...
Principles of Transversality in Globalization and Education, 2018
Felix Guattari’s concepts were evolved in practical situations, often working with groups to chan... more Felix Guattari’s concepts were evolved in practical situations, often working with groups to change their situation. Transversality was one of his earliest conceptions (Guattari in psychoanalysis and transversality: texts and interviews 1955–1971. Semiotext(e), South Pasadena, 2015) and was designed to enhance communication between parties and to transform group dynamics. This chapter takes the concept of transversality as an educational thought, capable of dealing with aspects of globalization such as the loss of identity in a global capitalist situation and asks the questions: (1) How can we enact transversality for educational contexts such as Australia and Iran, and thus to help us understand globalization? (2) Further, what are the practical steps to perform transversality in education across international borders? (3) What are the possible contradictions/paradoxes in the application of transversality to globalized educational contexts? This chapter will look at the different contexts for education in Australia and Iran that have been chosen due to their relationships with capitalism. The key terms of analysis of these educational contexts for the chapter will be ‘constraint’ and ‘desire’ in both locations. The notion of transversality was invented by Guattari against the backdrop of and in Lacanian psychoanalysis, and the key differences between Lacanian psychoanalysis and Guattarian transversality will guide the unpacking of constraint and desire in Australian and Iranian teaching and learning contexts.
When analysing authoritarianism in pedagogy, one is immediately faced with a question: How real i... more When analysing authoritarianism in pedagogy, one is immediately faced with a question: How real is the authoritarianism that one is describing? There is an inevitable «loop» or mode of reciprocation between the object of investigation; i.e. authoritarianism, and one’s own subjective projections about what authoritarianism is, how one has felt it in the past, and connected it to education. Certainly, societies in the West have, in general, changed in their attitudes to pedagogic authoritarianism since the 1960s and 1970s, perhaps under the influence of the mores of post-War, mass education. This article takes two paths of explication to these changes, one through the combined work of Deleuze andand Guattari, the other through the critical realism of Roy Bhaskar. The theoretical and intellectual work of Deleuze andand Guattari points to and makes plain the ways in which authoritarianism in education is continually under threat and being undermined by a myriad of «minor» forces, for ex...
ABSTRACT This article is an up-dated version of Gordon Brown's ontological approach to educat... more ABSTRACT This article is an up-dated version of Gordon Brown's ontological approach to education. It tests the hypothesis that Roy Bhaskar's critical realism can successfully underpin education by applying it to: (1) curriculum; (2) pedagogy; and (3) assessment. It argues that critical realism provides an inter-disciplinary praxis, built around science, sociology and metaphysics, which can be taken up by educationalists to enhance their agency and produce positive knowledge cultures in their every day practices. Therefore Bhaskar's critical realism can unify those streams of educational thought that tend to create divisions which impede the development of knowledge cultures, and limit agency.
Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 2019
This article will investigate the philosophy of science of Roy Bhaskar (1944–2014) as a coherent ... more This article will investigate the philosophy of science of Roy Bhaskar (1944–2014) as a coherent basis for environmental education. The work of Bhaskar serves as an in-depth approach to understanding how to apply critical realism (the critical and the realist) to matters such as environmental education, because he concretely theorises the connections between science, social change and metaphysics. By mobilising key Bhaskarian motifs — that is, the primacy of ontology over epistemology, the laminated system as a means to understand reality, the ways in which inquiry may be organised through the real, actual and the empirical, and the positive application of dialectics — this article constructs a new approach to environmental education and positions it in the field of environmental education by comparing it to posthumanism and the new materialisms. This article contains inquiry-based study outlines for enhanced thinking around: (1) climate change and social justice; (2) movements towa...
International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 2017
Abstract This article will explore the increasing interest in the application of the philosophy o... more Abstract This article will explore the increasing interest in the application of the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari and Alfred North Whitehead to educational research, for example, as a conceptual underpinning for inquiry in the new materialisms, and/or educational posthumanism. The exploration of this paper is complicated by the fact that Deleuze and Guattari changed their philosophical position in their dual publications, with, for example, their last book: What is Philosophy? representing a substantial departure from their rhizomatic work in, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. This article will explain the changes in position with reference to the mapping of conceptual ecologies that Deleuze and Guattari are describing through their philosophy, and not dualism. Concept creation appears in the analysis of Western philosophy in: What is Philosophy? and as the job of philosophy. In contrast, A Thousand Plateaus presents a whole raft of interrelated concepts that help explain the connections between capitalism and schizophrenia, but do not present ‘concept creation’ as a positive task as such, even though one could impute that they are successfully doing it. This article will explain these changes in positioning of Deleuze and Guattari as a mode of sophisticated conceptual ecology, which takes into account the work that they want their concepts to perform. Transcribed to educational research, ‘concept creation’ is an importantly non-methodological task, which is augmented and expanded with reference to the metaphysics of Whitehead’s process philosophy (a non-method), and how it has been taken up, for example, by Isabelle Stengers in terms of research positioning and science.
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