Short-term international study tours are increasingly available as an elective academic credit course at Canadian universities and seminaries. My research examined the pedagogy of such study tours to ascertain whether a study tour that encourages critical reflection assists students to synthesise learning to the extent that their pre-existing conceptual framework is modified or transformed. Since all the tours had a spiritual or religious theme, I also investigated the extent to which these study tours encouraged transcendent experiences and spiritual learning. I investigated four study tours, two of which went to Spain and included a pilgrimage along El Camino de Santiago, another to Israel/Palestine exploring both historical sites and contemporary issues, and the fourth to Cyprus, Malta, and Rome, exploring the history and legacy of Paul, the Christian apostle. In addition, I participated in a local Ontario, Canada, pilgrimage and a service learning trip to an orphanage in Mexico as comparatives to the study tours. Adopting an interpretivist methodology, data was gathered from students and professors through questionnaires and interviews, and from my observations as a participant researcher. The data were interpreted to map how learning is occurring using Kolb’s experiential learning cycle and Illeris’ three−dimensional learning model, and to identify what contributes to learning. The research discovered that the student’s localised conceptual framework associated with the home context can be modified or transformed by the experience on-the-ground at the tour destination, resulting in transformative learning or moving students toward transformative learning. To encourage student learning, pre-tour preparatory studies should address the potential gap in student’s background knowledge and their existing meaning schemes, and should prepare the students for experiential learning. Reflective time and space should be provided during the tour to allow students to process their experiences, including emotional responses. And, post-tour assignments should encourage critical reflection that integrates and consolidates learning. To encourage spiritual learning requires accommodating students’ diverse interpretations of spirituality, and allowing students similar space and time, particularly at sacred places, to process spiritual experiences.

Through an analysis of, and novel comparison between, the thought of Jacqes Lacan and Paulo Freire, this thesis endevours to rethink subjective agency in a way which takes into account the determinate influence of socio-symbolic structures. It argues for a reconceptualisation of subjecthood such that it might once again (subsequent to postmodernism and poststructuralism) become a basis of a system of ethics. The project examines the ways in which Lacan and Freire innovatively chart the dialectic between being and meaning which, they posit, is a universal human phenomenon. Within their conceptions of this dialectic a subject not only has the ability to make fundamental choices but can also ground trans-subjective truth. The thesis addresses what it percieves as a need to re-emphasize subjecthood as a symbolic existence required of all human beings. Such an existence, it maintains, is the object of Lacan and Freire's work. It, furthermore, posits that the impetus behind their interventions concerning subjectivity is primarily an ethical one. Both thinkers cite engagement with and humility before the project of meaning (as shared human activity) as an essential component of an authentic subjective act. Literacy operates in this thesis as a unifying motif between the thought of Freire and Lacan.Understood in light of their work, literacy suggests a pedagogical practice that prompts individuals to realise their capacity and responsibility as subjects. The project aims to outline the central features and tactics of such practice. The thesis also draws on examples from literature, particularly that of J.M. Coetzee, in an attempt to explicate the dynamics with which both Freire and Lacan are preoccupied. Coetzee is particularly suited to this end because his novels are largely concerned with how subjects confront the necessity as well as the difficulty of making ethical interventions in meaning.

The research reported in this thesis explores national identity construction by students in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). A lower secondary school (6-8 grades, 11-14 years) was the site where the research took place. The study was designed to examine the relationship between students’ construction of national identity and their educational experience. The aim was to reveal and examine the sense of national self this age-group of students in Northern Cyprus had, how through their education they were placed in the immediate community and the broader social and geo-political space, and what factors contributed to the process of the construction of their national identification. The study was undertaken using multimedia data collection methods, specifically (1) primary texts; (2) interviews with students, teachers, school managers, textbooks writers and officials from the Ministry of Education; and (3) on-site observation of the school at work and lessons. The analytic framing for enquiry was based on Foucault's programme of investigation of the constitution of the subject, which approached the process of national identity construction as an interplay of the structural environment of schooling and of individuals’ agency, revealed through a set of practices. The study findings indicated that the schooling experience played a distinct role in shaping national identities of students. The school was shown to actively promote the state, the TRNC, where the school was located. The state rituals and state ideology were reproduced through school practices, which modeled prescriptive patterns of state structures but were also seen as ‘school-specific’. Viewed as such, school practices, through which the students were positioned as belonging to their state, reproduced and sustained the social norms practiced in society. The patterns of students’ positioning as belonging to their state reflected conflicting conditions of the existence of the TRNC. Through their schooling experience, the students were positioned as belonging to the same national group. At the same time, the students were shown to be capable of strategizing in making their individual choices of self-positioning in relationship to the world of states and nations. Several interrelated factors contributing to the process of national identity construction were identified as education policies, schooling environment, teachers’ agency and students’ agency. Theorized through Foucault’s analytic concepts of technologies these factors were seen as parts of the same process and were clustered into a diagram mapping the technologies in relation to one another as four interrelated factors.

Through history popular education has evolved against the backdrop of social movements engaged in the struggle for social change in a variety of contexts. During the past forty years some of these movements have found expression in a wide range of participatory processes with a particular focus on community empowerment. In 1993, in the village of Renton, Scotland, local people created their own housing association, Cordale Housing Association (CHA) and from its inception declared that it would not build houses “for people to live their poverty in” (CHA Mission statement, 1993). Since then the community has acquired local physical assets and created the Renton Community Development Trust (RCDT) focused on eradicating poverty in the village. Based on data collected in the period 2009 – 2011, I examine the community’s claim to social change in the village over the past twenty years. I also discuss the community’s claim to local peoples’ active participation in the process of social change and whether the Renton community experience can be considered a process of popular education. This research is a contribution to the body of knowledge identified with critical social-educational research. It is also a contribution to the debate about the creation of a new socio-economic and cultural model of society based on the values of equity, solidarity and justice.

Entertainment Education is a communication strategy widely used in non-formal community education for the purpose of inspiring behaviour and social change. As an international development strategy for educational interventions in mostly developing countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America, the practice is founded on persuasive communication aimed for the diffusion of ‘modern’ innovation. Entertainment Education has been commended for its efficiency in creation of awareness amongst target communities, but criticised for its inability to generate enduring practical change in the lives of the target community members. Situating this practice within Emancipatory Transformative Education, I interrogated the emancipatory principles of democratic practice in Entertainment Education as representational of an intercultural educational space. I did this with a sample case of Geenu Nti programme situated in Northern Nigeria and executed by an American centre for international development. My interaction with the programme stakeholders and audience through the use of semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions and documentary analysis revealed that despite efforts at participatory practice, the programme fell short of the key emancipatory values of intellectual equality and freedom in its educational content and process. This raised the need for the reconceptualization of current approach in the management of transformative change in individuals and communities and a relational concern with practitioners’ approach to emancipatory education in general. Drawing on the thoughts of emancipatory education philosophers like Freire, Rancière and Biesta as well as trialectic change philosophers like Bergson, Chia and Ford & Ford, I conceptualised the principles of a model of emancipatory educational change practice. These principles were then articulated into a realisable interactional space with ideas drawn from Ross and Harré to develop a Model of Emancipatory Education for Change which presents an equally creative and expressive inter-subjective communicative relationship between the educator and the ‘educandee’**. Here the educator, through democratic authority simultaneously challenges and nourishes the educadee’s freedom for autonomous growth within individual and collective existential realities, while equally navigating personal growth. The model furthers the idea of emancipation as a process of subjectification to a conceptualisation of emancipation as a process of subjectified socialisation. NB **: The term ‘educandee’ is adopted from Kivelä et al. (1995) and Biesta (1998) and introduced in the later part of the work to signify my concept of participants in communicative educational engagements. I use the term educandee to convey my concept of an educational participant who, under a relatively equal power relation with the educator, actively participates in the educational process as an autonomous individual creating response to own existential circumstances under the intentional support or guidance of a skilled practitioner. This represents the ‘educated’ which is generally my preferred term as against the ‘learner’ or ‘student’ that I deliberately avoided using except when presenting the ideas of other scholars and in their own terms.

The thesis explores the plausibility of grounding citizenship education in a plural moral philosophical perspective without the danger of relativism. This is meant to enrich and allow citizenship education to reach its full potential of developing responsible and participatory citizens. Most societies require education to develop responsible citizens who have a questioning attitude as well as willing to contribute to the general welfare of society and the environment. However, citizenship education often fails to reach its full potential because it is theorised on a single moral philosophical perspective such as deontic rights. To date there has been little intellectual engagement in the research literature on citizenship education with the question of whether it might be possible, let alone valuable to have a citizenship education underpinned by a plural moral philosophical perspective. Drawing from literature in moral philosophy and education, the study follows a philosophical approach to analyse a conceptual framework which includes deontological ethics, virtue ethics, care ethics, utilitarian ethics and the capabilities approach. It is argued that teachers may draw from a plural moral philosophical perspective on citizenship education so that we do not only develop citizens with rights, who participate in making and obeying laws, but citizens who are motivated to participate for the right reasons, at the right time and for the right motive, and, at the same time are sympathetic to the plight of others and willing to facilitate the capabilities of others. In particular, virtue ethics and care ethics are essential for personal (moral) and social dimension of citizenship education while deontological ethics and the capabilities approach contribute towards the political dimension. It is also proposed that teacher education should include moral philosophy as well as the reading of literature in order to promote a broad conception of education which enables teachers to draw from a plural moral philosophical perspective in teaching citizenship education as a theme across the curriculum.

Long distance running has become increasingly popular in Hong Kong and some middle-aged men take up running in midlife. This research studies the transformative learning that occurs when they practise long distance running in midlife and how it contributes to midlife transition. At the beginning of the study, four hypotheses were developed based on researcher’s observations and literature review. Thirteen middle-aged Hong Kong male runners were then interviewed in a semi-structured way. Thirty-four themes were identified from the data and analysed. The hypotheses were evaluated and arguments of this thesis were then developed. It is then found that long distance running mirrors some real life situations of middle-aged men, triggers transformative learning, and provides the setting for them to reflect on and practise the transformed beliefs and values. When running and the associated transformation address the initial concerns of the middle-aged men, and they are able to resolve difficulties in running with proper methods and find ways to enjoy running, long distance running becomes part of their lives. Long distance running is then a high leverage activity which addresses other midlife concerns and contributes to other life aspects and midlife transition. Moreover, those who were good at sports as teenagers and did not exercise regularly in mid-adulthood are found to benefit more easily from taking up long distance running in midlife. This study extends the application of transformative learning theory to understand and facilitate midlife transition and shows that a single routine activity, like long distance running, can be a multi-function activity in the transformative learning process and a high leverage activity for midlife transition that contributes to multiple life aspects.

The recent transformations in Chinese society are creating a society with diverse values where individuals suffer values conflict and values confusion generally. The socialist core values system is still consistently promoted by the government, and transmitting these core values to students is the main goal of moral education in schools. In the recent curriculum reform, this goal has again been stressed. These values are built into all the academic subjects and extra curricular activities and the implementation of values education has been advocated through every element in schools. However, Confucian values are also deeply engrained in Chinese society, while at the same time increased economic activity is generating a greater openness to the influence of western values. Against such a social backdrop, this study explores what values are communicated in the English lessons in a class in a senior high school in Beijing and how the students understand values. The processes and outcomes of the communication of values in the English lessons are examined from a symbolic interactionist perspective. The focus of this examination is the discourses of the students and the English teacher, through which the values in their communications and their personal values are manifested. Observation and interviews are used to collect the discourses of the students and the English teacher. The values communicated in the English lessons and the personal values of the students and teachers are analyzed through comparisons with the values promoted through the educational system, with those communicated in the English lessons in three other classes and with the personal values of their counterparts. The analysis reveals that: a) the English teachers do convey the values which they are expected to transmit to the students through the English curriculum, while they also subconsciously convey the values which they take for granted as commonsense; b) the students do understand the values communicated through the curriculum and the hidden curriculum in the English lessons, while their understanding reflects the individual differences in their personal values systems and the diverse values in society. A constructivist lens is used to examine further the process of understanding and to clarify the relationship between students’ understanding of values and the processes and outcomes of the values communication, and the relationship between students’ understanding of values and their cognitive background, moral judgement, moral decision making, and moral development. Based on the analysis and interpretation, a new approach to assessing moral development is discussed and suggestions for moral education in schools are given in the conclusion.

This project suggests that the exclusion of children from social discourse has been naturalized, and remains largely unchallenged in the West (Salisbury and Styles, 2012, p. 113). While some didactic picturebooks and pedagogies construct and perpetuate this exclusion, I will explore the potential of critical picturebooks and critical pedagogy to counter it. Critical picturebooks and critical pedagogy, I propose, can help to build and support the critical consciousness of readers, transforming their social relations. Specifically, this project is concerned with the exclusion of children from discourse on colonialism in Canada, and it highlights the need for critical consciousness in this area. I suggest that critical picturebooks can play a role in unsettling settler relations, or shifting Canada-Aboriginal relations towards more ethical ones. I therefore offer an anti-colonial pedagogy for picturebooks to facilitate these aims. This pedagogy is generated through putting theory on picturebooks, critical pedagogy, Indigenous methods, as well as local pedagogy in Alert Bay into an interdisciplinary conversation. I begin by asking ‘how can picturebooks function as transformative texts?’ Drawing on picturebook theory, I present five elements of critical picturebooks that make them conducive to transformative social discourse: 1) flexibility of the form (enabling complex, cross-genre narratives); 2) accessibility of composite texts (allowing for multiliteracies); 3) textual gaps in composite texts; 4) their dialogical nature (often being read and analyzed aloud); and, 5) their ability to address content silenced in many educational settings. I hold that “the plasticity of mind” which Margaret Mackey suggests is engendered by the picturebook’s flexible form (explicated by these five elements) also fosters a plasticity of mind in terms of the reader navigating social issues or complex problems presented in its content (as cited in Salisbury and Styles, 2012, p. 91). This dual plasticity positions the picturebook as a valuable and empowering discursive or dialogical tool. If, as Paulo Freire asserts, “it is in speaking their word that people, by naming the world, transform it, dialogue imposes itself as the way by which they achieve significance as human beings”, then it is crucial that children are included in social dialogue that has been typically reserved for adults (Freire, 2000, p. 69). I then discuss the ways in which my participatory action research (PAR) in the community of Alert Bay, British Columbia, illustrates the transformative potentials of picturebooks, and helped to form an anti-colonial pedagogy for picturebooks. Workshops with local children, young adults and adults examined the unique form and content of picturebook narratives. In following with Freire, the aim was not only to explore the pedagogical promise of existing texts, but also to co-develop tools with which participants generate their own self-representations. We focused on developing narratives on food, an important generative theme that connects many facets of life including experiences of colonialism. Through additional conversations and embodied learning activities, I was introduced to local anti-colonial pedagogical methods. I put these experiences into conversation with theories of critical pedagogy put forth by Freire, Ivan Illich, bell hooks and Henry Giroux and a discussion of Indigenous research and pedagogical methods offered by Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Sandy Grande, Leanne Simpson, Lynn Gehl, and curricular resources. This research culminated in making Grease, a picturebook on the importance of oolichan oil to Alert Bay, told from a visitor’s perspective. In creating Grease, I have aimed to practically apply my proposed pedagogy, and make my work available to both Alert Bay and (in the future) to readers farther afield. This is an effort to address the dearth of anti-colonial literature and education available to children in Canada and elsewhere. The final chapter of my thesis serves as an annotative guide to be read alongside Grease. The pedagogy and picturebook combined present tenable ways in which picturebooks can engage children in critical discussions of colonialism and function as transformative texts.

This thesis interweaves two strands of inquiry, one educational, the other philosophical. The educational inquiry is seeded by the need to understand both embodiment and learning within experiences of place in education. The second strand is prompted by Evernden’s insight that the environmental crisis is a ‘crisis of being’ (1985). Evernden argues that our perceived separation from the world is at the root of the environmental issues we face. Highlighting the role that ‘place’ might have in both these inquiries, I examine the educational and philosophical debates around place, drawing especially on place-based education (Gruenewald & Smith, 2008), and phenomenology (Merleau-Ponty, 1968). Arguments from within these literatures indicate that experiences of, and in, place hold the potential to reexamine what it means to be part of the world, here, now. Three key research questions emerge from my examination of the literature: 1 – what role do experiences of place have in education? 2 – what is the ontology of place? and 3 – how does place affect thinking and learning? This third question is the meeting point of the philosophical and educational threads of the inquiry, and also reflects back on the process of the inquiry itself. Given the focus of these questions on the lived experience of place, phenomenology is chosen as a suitable methodology. However, I argue that the full potential of phenomenological research can only be met through a more participative and experiential approach. Drawing on literature on participative research, grouped under the term ‘action research,’ (Reason & Bradbury, 2001), a series of collaborative phenomenological research workshops were run in 2009 and 2010 with two groups of practicing educators. Descriptions of experiences of place and place-based education, from within the workshops and the participants’ workplaces, were distilled into themes by the groups. These themes served two purposes: the first was to explore the possibilities of place-based education in various working contexts, an inquiry which was completed during the workshops. The second was to seed a phenomenological investigation into the ontology of place, exploring questions from the philosophical debate on place. This second part of the inquiry was completed by myself. Both groups felt place-based education revealed aspects of place taken for granted or un-explored. This was summed up by one participant in the phrase ‘bringing place to life.’ The participants’ understandings of the different aspects of placebased education including the pedagogy involved, and the possible outcomes, show how place-based education was understood and applied in different contexts. The phenomenological analysis which builds on the participants’ understandings, describes a contrast between un-examined place and the intimate and immersive experience that can occur when place is ‘brought to life.’ The final part of the thesis explores in further depth the role of the mind in ‘bringing place to life,’ putting forward the idea of mind as a phenomenon which can adopt different scales. When learning and thinking on the same scale as the body, the mind is brought to place, and the dualism between mind and body breaks down. ‘Thinking in place’ is put forward as a way of understanding both the experience of learning in context, and the phenomenological immersion of both body and mind in place. The conclusions explore the implications of this research for the various fields touched on in the study: educational approaches such as environmental education, philosophical approaches to place, and research methodologies.