Jim Garrett
The University of Georgia, Educational Theory and Practice, Faculty Member
- My research interests center the complexities of teaching and learning, particularly on encounters that the teacher o... moreMy research interests center the complexities of teaching and learning, particularly on encounters that the teacher or students experiences as profound and/or significant. I am curious as to the ways in which knowledge as often feels a burden as it does a luxury.
In pursuing questions related to significant learning, I have worked with Deborah Britzman's notion of "difficult knowledge" to investigate how pre and inservice social studies teachers engage and then make pedagogical instances of social and historical trauma.
I am currently beginning a series of projects related to the question of how photography, literature and other "artistic" texts facilitate (or not) pedagogical environments that invite impactful experiences. To this end, I am working with Toni Morrison's novel Beloved as well as photoessay assignments in order to answer questions about the connections between social understandings and narrations of these artistic texts.edit
In this book, I inquire into the processes of learning about the social world, populated as it is with bewildering instances of loss, violence, and upheaval. In such learning, interactions invite and enliven our passionate responses, or... more
In this book, I inquire into the processes of learning about the social world, populated as it is with bewildering instances of loss, violence, and upheaval. In such learning, interactions invite and enliven our passionate responses, or prompt us to avoid them. Interpreting and working with these often emotional reaction is critical to social studies education and developing strategies for individuals to participate in democracy.
I illustrate the ways that learning about the world does not occur in absence of our intimate relations to knowledge, the way learning sometimes feels like our undoing, and how new knowledge can feel more like a burden than an advantage.
I illustrate the ways that learning about the world does not occur in absence of our intimate relations to knowledge, the way learning sometimes feels like our undoing, and how new knowledge can feel more like a burden than an advantage.
Research Interests:
This article calls for greater attention to the role of emotion and affect in classroom discussions where theoretical models of discussion and deliberation tend to emphasize the rationalistic elements called for in such pedagogical... more
This article calls for greater attention to the role of emotion and affect in classroom discussions where theoretical models of discussion and deliberation tend to emphasize the rationalistic elements called for in such pedagogical strategies. Using two examples drawn from secondary classrooms, the authors highlight the role of emotion and affect in student
exchanges about controversial public issues. Given the contemporary climate of national political discourse, being prepared for and accommodating these elements will be essential to taking up these strategies as a form of inquiry-oriented teaching and learning that seeks
to address public issues with students across the curriculum.
exchanges about controversial public issues. Given the contemporary climate of national political discourse, being prepared for and accommodating these elements will be essential to taking up these strategies as a form of inquiry-oriented teaching and learning that seeks
to address public issues with students across the curriculum.
Research Interests:
This paper attends to the emotional and affective relations that manifest through political discussions in secondary classrooms. In particular, the focus is on the dynamics of classrooms during discussions of political issues. Specific... more
This paper attends to the emotional and affective relations that manifest
through political discussions in secondary classrooms. In particular, the
focus is on the dynamics of classrooms during discussions of political
issues. Specific attention is given to interpretations of movements and
manifestations of emotions as well as the ways that teachers work with,
avoid, navigate and help students make meaning from such discussions.
Two case examples are provided that took place in the US South in the
Spring of 2018 in separate high school classrooms; the first a discussion
about Confederate Memorialization and the second a conversation about
gun violence that took place 1 week after the massacre in Parkland,
Florida. The idea of containment, borrowed from psychoanalytic theory,
is used to theorize how students and teachers engage with and work
through difficult emotional content. The ways that emotional significance
and political knowledge are linked become increasingly necessary to
understand in the context of increasing political divisions across democratic
countries.
through political discussions in secondary classrooms. In particular, the
focus is on the dynamics of classrooms during discussions of political
issues. Specific attention is given to interpretations of movements and
manifestations of emotions as well as the ways that teachers work with,
avoid, navigate and help students make meaning from such discussions.
Two case examples are provided that took place in the US South in the
Spring of 2018 in separate high school classrooms; the first a discussion
about Confederate Memorialization and the second a conversation about
gun violence that took place 1 week after the massacre in Parkland,
Florida. The idea of containment, borrowed from psychoanalytic theory,
is used to theorize how students and teachers engage with and work
through difficult emotional content. The ways that emotional significance
and political knowledge are linked become increasingly necessary to
understand in the context of increasing political divisions across democratic
countries.
Research Interests:
In this article, we discuss three ways that emotional content was presented, registered, performed, and communicated in a secondary social studies classroom discussion. In an analysis of a classroom discussion about representative... more
In this article, we discuss three ways that emotional content was
presented, registered, performed, and communicated in a secondary
social studies classroom discussion. In an analysis of a classroom discussion about representative democracy, we focus on the articulated
and embodied emotional and affective content that manifested in
students’ sharing of views about same-sex marriage. While the discussion
was ostensibly about the students’ beliefs and their alignment
with those of their elected representatives, we focus on three particular
emotional registers circulating within it: aggression, withholding,
and reversals. We claim that interpreting and articulating such emotional
processes, and considering them as inherent parts of (rather
than extra to) political discussions, may help researchers and teachers
acknowledge and accommodate the emotional realities of confronting
the social and political world of classrooms.
presented, registered, performed, and communicated in a secondary
social studies classroom discussion. In an analysis of a classroom discussion about representative democracy, we focus on the articulated
and embodied emotional and affective content that manifested in
students’ sharing of views about same-sex marriage. While the discussion
was ostensibly about the students’ beliefs and their alignment
with those of their elected representatives, we focus on three particular
emotional registers circulating within it: aggression, withholding,
and reversals. We claim that interpreting and articulating such emotional
processes, and considering them as inherent parts of (rather
than extra to) political discussions, may help researchers and teachers
acknowledge and accommodate the emotional realities of confronting
the social and political world of classrooms.
Research Interests:
The researching and practicing of social studies education is often infused with poetry, art, literature, film, photography, and music. Engagements with and production of these aesthetic texts can promote critical thinking, foster... more
The researching and practicing of social studies education is often infused
with poetry, art, literature, film, photography, and music. Engagements with and production of these aesthetic texts can promote critical thinking, foster empathetic thinking, and aid historical analysis. This article provides 3 potential theoretical explorations for why this might be so. The authors theorize aesthetic encounters in social studies education by deploying the terms of aesthetic experience, aesthetic conflict, and relational aesthetics. Each of those theoretical terms aids in the exploration of why aesthetic texts are so compelling and crucially important for social studies education. Further, these theoretical terms have potential to frame future research within social studies education. The complicated aesthetic dimension to powerful social studies pedagogy, research, and
practice is described herein.
with poetry, art, literature, film, photography, and music. Engagements with and production of these aesthetic texts can promote critical thinking, foster empathetic thinking, and aid historical analysis. This article provides 3 potential theoretical explorations for why this might be so. The authors theorize aesthetic encounters in social studies education by deploying the terms of aesthetic experience, aesthetic conflict, and relational aesthetics. Each of those theoretical terms aids in the exploration of why aesthetic texts are so compelling and crucially important for social studies education. Further, these theoretical terms have potential to frame future research within social studies education. The complicated aesthetic dimension to powerful social studies pedagogy, research, and
practice is described herein.
Research Interests:
This article questions the status of two recurring concepts in teacher preparation: resistance and ignorance. Both of these terms have significant presence within the teacher education literature. Because both of these terms often occur... more
This article questions the status of two recurring concepts in teacher preparation: resistance and ignorance. Both of these terms have significant presence within the teacher education literature. Because both of these terms often occur in relation to a particular topic, that of race and multicultural education, we also utilize race as the discourse that frames our consideration of these two important issues. To reframe and reorient our attention to the processes of ignorance and resistance, we turn to psychoanalytic considerations of those terms and consider what such a turn can offer teacher educators as they engage teacher candidates with issues of race.
The author explores the articulations of six social studies student/teachers after a viewing of When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts. The film, a documentary about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina on the people in and around... more
The author explores the articulations of six social studies student/teachers after a viewing of When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts. The film, a documentary about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina on the people in and around New Orleans, constitutes an encounter with what Deborah Britzman (1998) calls “difficult knowledge”—representations of social/historical trauma in pedagogical situations. Drawing on ideas from psychoanalytic theory, the author elaborates on the ways that this difficult knowledge (i.e., the viewing of injustice, suffering, and death) gets “routed” and “re-routed” through the participants' discussions about the film. The author's overall objective, then, is to explore the rich complexity of the ways that social and historical traumas are felt, experienced, understood and then made pedagogical. Because a great deal of social studies curriculum is, in fact, constituted by difficult knowledge (e.g., studying wars, famines, genocides, injustices, slavery), it is important to consider the ways that understandings, and lessons, are made from such interactions.
Research Interests:
This article investigates the use of photography as a narrative approach to learningin the context of postsecondary education. Two cases are presented: a social studies methods course in a teacher education program in the South of the... more
This article investigates the use of photography as a narrative approach to learningin the context of postsecondary education. Two cases are presented: a social studies methods course in a teacher education program in the South of the United States;
and a senior undergraduate seminar on global violence at a university in southern Ontario, Canada. With each case presentation we explore how the assignment of photography both instantiates and cultivates the student’s ability to tolerate, represent, and interpret encounters with pedagogical complexity. A term of learning that apprehends the pedagogical encounter as made from the tensions between knowing and uncertainty, pedagogical complexity is discussed with regard to the psychoanalytic concept of containment. Using a case presentation approach, the authors explore the possibilities and limits of the assignment of photography in relation to the pedagogical work of containment. Engaging a cross-case analysis of the research data, the authors conclude by discussing the potential for photographic practices to contain the dynamics of pedagogical complexity
and a senior undergraduate seminar on global violence at a university in southern Ontario, Canada. With each case presentation we explore how the assignment of photography both instantiates and cultivates the student’s ability to tolerate, represent, and interpret encounters with pedagogical complexity. A term of learning that apprehends the pedagogical encounter as made from the tensions between knowing and uncertainty, pedagogical complexity is discussed with regard to the psychoanalytic concept of containment. Using a case presentation approach, the authors explore the possibilities and limits of the assignment of photography in relation to the pedagogical work of containment. Engaging a cross-case analysis of the research data, the authors conclude by discussing the potential for photographic practices to contain the dynamics of pedagogical complexity
Research Interests:
This article is derived from my practice as a teacher educator working with social studies teachers. In it, I write in tentative steps to think pedagogically about the ways that encountering a particular text, Toni Morrison's novel... more
This article is derived from my practice as a teacher educator working with social studies teachers. In it, I write in tentative steps to think pedagogically about the ways that encountering a particular text, Toni Morrison's novel Beloved, can illustrate the ways in which knowledge is reformed and recognized in the pedagogical scene. Drawing from psychoanalytic inquiries within education research, I turn to how the Lacanian notion of "full speech" might bring a kind of focus to new, forward reaching ways of knowing in relation to the past for those involved in the work of pedagogy
Research Interests:
Abstract The story of South Africa's struggles and present achievements is highlighted in its national museums. An examination of the discourses constructed by and the pedagogies utilised in these museums shares narratives of... more
Abstract The story of South Africa's struggles and present achievements is highlighted in its national museums. An examination of the discourses constructed by and the pedagogies utilised in these museums shares narratives of progress, memorial and optimism. On a continent whose stories are typically told as tales of pessimism and doom, these narratives produce a new and different discourse surrounding South Africa. Ultimately, this article finds that these 'new', optimistic discourses exist with a framework of global pessimism placed ...
Research Interests:
In light of the increasing racial diversity in American schools and the consistently homogenous teacher workforce in the United States, understanding the ways white teachers consider and attend to racial issues is of crucial importance to... more
In light of the increasing racial diversity in American schools and the consistently homogenous teacher workforce in the United States, understanding the ways white teachers consider and attend to racial issues is of crucial importance to the educational landscape. This paper, based on a qualitative study, explores five white American teachers’ talk about race following their viewing of a documentary film about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath in New Orleans. The paper adds to the already rich literature on white teachers’ talk about race by
using three kinds of analytic tools: narrative analysis, discourse analysis, and psychoanalytically-informed notions of ignorance and resistance that complicate the existing literature’s exploration of white teachers’ avoidance of racial issues.
The authors argue that white teachers have sophisticated knowledge about race, despite the common suppositions otherwise, and suggest attention be paid to the ways in which this knowledge is activated, ignored, and/or resisted. The paper
concludes with implications for teacher education.
using three kinds of analytic tools: narrative analysis, discourse analysis, and psychoanalytically-informed notions of ignorance and resistance that complicate the existing literature’s exploration of white teachers’ avoidance of racial issues.
The authors argue that white teachers have sophisticated knowledge about race, despite the common suppositions otherwise, and suggest attention be paid to the ways in which this knowledge is activated, ignored, and/or resisted. The paper
concludes with implications for teacher education.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The author uses a trip to a Holocaust museum to explain and illustrate psychoanalytic concepts from Freud to Lacan in order to re-imagine persistent dilemmas in teacher education. The author suggests that psychoanalytic vocabularies... more
The author uses a trip to a Holocaust museum to explain and illustrate psychoanalytic concepts from Freud to Lacan in order to re-imagine persistent dilemmas in teacher education. The author suggests that psychoanalytic vocabularies provide an additional and productive lens to conceptualize productive
possibilities in teacher education.
possibilities in teacher education.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Politically tumultuous times have created a problematic space for teachers who include the news in their classrooms. Few studies have explored perceptions of news credibility among secondary social studies teachers, the educators most... more
Politically tumultuous times have created a problematic space for teachers who include the news in their classrooms. Few studies have explored perceptions of news credibility among secondary social studies teachers, the educators most likely to regularly incorporate news media into their classrooms. We investigated teachers’ operational definitions of credibility and the relationships between political ideology and assessments of news source credibility. Most teachers in this study used either static or dynamic definitions to describe news media sources’ credibility. Further, teachers’ conceptualizations of credibility and perceived ideological differences with news sources were associated with how credible teachers found each source. These results indicate potential inconsistencies in how news credibility is defined and possible political bias in which sources social studies teachers use as exemplars of credibility.
Research Interests: Psychology, Perception, Education, Mixed Methods, Social Studies Education, and 15 moreCivic Education, Mass Communication, Politics, Ideology, Qualitative Research, Media, Media Literacy Education, Mixed Methods Research, Curriculum and Instruction, Educational Researcher, Journalism Studies, News Media, Credibility, Critical and Cultural Studies, and Regression Analyses
Research Interests: Psychology, Education, Teacher Education, Social Studies Education, Mass Communication, and 9 moreMedia Literacy, Complexity, Social Media, Media Literacy Education, Secondary Education, Curriculum and Instruction, Journalism Studies, News media literacy, and Teacher education and professional development
This chapter investigates the use of photography as a narrative approach to learning in the context of postsecondary education. Two case presentations are discussed: a social studies methods course in a teacher education program in the... more
This chapter investigates the use of photography as a narrative approach to learning in the context of postsecondary education. Two case presentations are discussed: a social studies methods course in a teacher education program in the South of the USA and a senior undergraduate seminar on global violence at a university in southern Ontario, Canada. With each case, we explore how the assignment of photography contains and works through the complexities of learning out of crisis, frustration, and anxiety. Learning to witness narratives of global violence and learning to teach social studies—while significantly different in many ways—are similar encounters in that they both contain dilemmas of representation, both are mitigated by larger sociopolitical discourses, and both call upon deep affective attachments to the world.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This article questions the status of two recurring concepts in teacher preparation: resistance and ignorance. Both of these terms have significant presence within the teacher education literature. Because both of these terms often occur... more
This article questions the status of two recurring concepts in teacher preparation: resistance and ignorance. Both of these terms have significant presence within the teacher education literature. Because both of these terms often occur in relation to a particular topic, that of race and multicultural education, we also utilize race as the discourse that frames our consideration of these two important issues. To reframe and reorient our attention to the processes of ignorance and resistance, we turn to psychoanalytic considerations of those terms and consider what such a turn can offer teacher educators as they engage teacher candidates with issues of race.
Research Interests:
RAUMATIC EVENTS leave people speechless, without direction, jarred loose from the moorings of linguistic stability. They leave an individual, or group of individuals, in a state of incoherence and seeking solace in any vestige of... more
RAUMATIC EVENTS leave people speechless, without direction, jarred loose from the moorings of linguistic stability. They leave an individual, or group of individuals, in a state of incoherence and seeking solace in any vestige of comprehensibility (Zizek, 2002). The meaning that eventually comes to this event is deferred, and only comes after we develop some capacity to once again rejoin our experience with the bonding, cohering, and sociality of language. Trauma, in other words, finds its location in the “after” of an event (Lacan, ...
Research Interests:
Abstract This article calls for greater attention to the role of emotion and affect in classroom discussions where theoretical models of discussion and deliberation tend to emphasize the rationalistic elements called for in such... more
Abstract This article calls for greater attention to the role of emotion and affect in classroom discussions where theoretical models of discussion and deliberation tend to emphasize the rationalistic elements called for in such pedagogical strategies. Using two examples drawn from secondary classrooms, the authors highlight the role of emotion and affect in student exchanges about controversial public issues. Given the contemporary climate of national political discourse, being prepared for and accommodating these elements will be essential to taking up these strategies as a form of inquiry-oriented teaching and learning that seeks to address public issues with students across the curriculum.
Research Interests:
In Brenda Trofanenko and Avner Segall (Eds): Beyond Pedagogy: Reconsidering the Public Purpose of Museums In this chapter I wonder about the degree to which we might conceptualize museums that attend to difficult knowledge as spaces... more
In Brenda Trofanenko and Avner Segall (Eds): Beyond Pedagogy: Reconsidering the Public Purpose of Museums
In this chapter I wonder about the degree to which we might conceptualize museums that attend to difficult knowledge as spaces that encourage us to stand in-between: to be at once confronted with our past experiences in ways that challenge our dominant narratives as well as create conditions that might be-ordered yet again.
In this chapter I wonder about the degree to which we might conceptualize museums that attend to difficult knowledge as spaces that encourage us to stand in-between: to be at once confronted with our past experiences in ways that challenge our dominant narratives as well as create conditions that might be-ordered yet again.
Research Interests:
I gave this paper at the Conference for the Journal of Curriculum Theorizing at the Bergamo Center in Dayton, OH. It was part of the spotlight session organized by Karyn Sandlos called Complicating the Curriculum Conversation Through... more
I gave this paper at the Conference for the Journal of Curriculum Theorizing at the Bergamo Center in Dayton, OH. It was part of the spotlight session organized by Karyn Sandlos called Complicating the Curriculum Conversation Through Contemporary Film. In that session, Karyn invited each of us to read one film with one “curriculum text” in order to demonstrate and perform the complexities in/of curriculum theory. The theme of this year’s conference, Continuing Complexities, maps onto terms like Pinar’s “Curriculum as Complicated Conversation” as well Sara Matthews and my recent formulation of the term “pedagogical complexity”. I begin by asking about the status of complexity.
Research Interests:
A common finding in the research on teacher education is that teacher candidates place a high value on their student teaching experiences. Most regard their clinical experiences as an influential—if not the single most influential—factor... more
A common finding in the research on teacher education is that teacher candidates place a high value on their student teaching experiences. Most regard their clinical experiences as an influential—if not the single most influential—factor in their professional learning and development as pre-service teachers (Knowles & Cole, 1996; Smith & Lev-Ari, 2005; Wilson, Floden, & Ferrini-Mundy, 2001).
Abstract: Social studies education is a field in which those involved--teachers and students--encounter what can be called" difficult knowledge". Difficult knowledge is a theoretical construct suggesting that when an... more
Abstract: Social studies education is a field in which those involved--teachers and students--encounter what can be called" difficult knowledge". Difficult knowledge is a theoretical construct suggesting that when an individual encounters representations of social and historical trauma in a learning situation there exists a host of emotional and pedagogical complications. This dissertation investigates difficult knowledge, its complications and implications, within the field of social studies teacher education. When learning to teach, ...
Research Interests:
Deborah Britzman's Novel Education: Psychoanalytic Studies of Learning and not Learning is the third in a series of works that mark a detour from the familiar terrain of teacher education and, as the titles of these books indicate,... more
Deborah Britzman's Novel Education: Psychoanalytic Studies of Learning and not Learning is the third in a series of works that mark a detour from the familiar terrain of teacher education and, as the titles of these books indicate, draw from psychoanalysis to aid readers in thinking and re-thinking about the educational endeavor. Two of her previous works, Lost Subjects, Contested Objects: Toward a Psychoanalytic Inquiry of Learning (1998) and After-Education: Anna Freud, Melanie Klein, and Psychoanalytic Histories of Learning (2003), ...