This dissertation explores the life and work of a philosophy of education and multicultural education teacher, through the use of narrative inquiry. As a Palestinian/Lebanese Canadian researcher, teacher, mother, activist and writer, I present the journey of freeing myself from colonial grand narratives through the construction of my personal, practical knowledge and values, while providing an answer to the question: "What does it mean to be situated on the boundary between the English West and the Middle Eastern Arab world?" I demonstrate how the Orientalist tradition, as defined by Edward Said (1978), served to confuse, frustrate, and alienate me as an embodied person situated within a web of historical, ethnic, linguistic, social, and cultural tensions. I describe how, having been educated in an English missionary school in the context of a Palestinian culture of dispossession and Diaspora, this education served to paradoxically both estrange and enrich me. I demonstrate how narrative inquiry, modeled after Clandinin and Connelly (1995, 2000), has enabled me to understand and communicate who I really am as an educator in the multiple social contexts I have known. Through story-ing my epistemology, I illustrate how the Canon in philosophy and the grand meta-narratives underpinning it served to oppress and alienate me over the years. I emphasize that education is not value-neutral. My autobiographical writing in this dissertation explores how the constructs of ethnicity, gender, religion, culture, language, and class serve to shape thinking and values. Since I believe that who we are is a blend of the personal and the social, and that 'we teach who we are,' I critically assess my experiences and share aspects of that experience that have empowered me as a female, Palestinian educator. Going back and forth, and in and out of my life, narrating it and commenting critically on it in the three-dimensional space of narrative inquiry, I convey what I mean by the statement "the personal is political" and what was involved in the process of seeking freedom from the bondage of intellectual subservience. My voice and my signature (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) within the text reveal what I mean pedagogically by a dynamic curriculum and a transformative education. Methodologically, this dissertation extends the boundaries of narrative inquiry through a nuanced use of auto-ethnography while providing insight into the life of a Palestinian teacher and writer within the Canadian context.

This dissertation explores the life and work of a philosophy of education and multicultural education teacher, through the use of narrative inquiry. As a Palestinian/Lebanese Canadian researcher, teacher, mother, activist and writer, I present the journey of freeing myself from colonial grand narratives through the construction of my personal, practical knowledge and values, while providing an answer to the question: “What does it mean to be situated on the boundary between the English West and the Middle Eastern Arab world?” I demonstrate how the Orientalist tradition, as defined by Edward Said (1978), served to confuse, frustrate, and alienate me as an embodied person situated within a web of historical, ethnic, linguistic, social, and cultural tensions. I describe how, having been educated in an English missionary school in the context of a Palestinian culture of dispossession and Diaspora, this education served to paradoxically both estrange and enrich me. I demonstrate how narrative inquiry, modeled after Clandinin and Connelly (1995, 2000), has enabled me to understand and communicate who I really am as an educator in the multiple social contexts I have known. Through story-ing my epistemology, I illustrate how the Canon in philosophy and the grand meta-narratives underpinning it served to oppress and alienate me over the years. I emphasize that education is not value-neutral. My autobiographical writing in this dissertation explores how the constructs of ethnicity, gender, religion, culture, language, and class serve to shape thinking and values. [...] / Cette dissertation explore la vie et l’oeuvre d’une philosophie de l’éducation et d’une enseignante dans le domaine de l’éducation multiculturelle, a travers l’emploi des approches de l’enquête narrative. Comme chercheure, enseignante, mere et écrivaine d’origine palestino-/libano-canadienne, j’y présente le cheminement de ma libération des grandes narrations coloniales, par le biais de ma création des connaissances et des valeurs personnelles et pratiques, tout en essayant d’offrir une réponse a la question: « Que signifie le fait de me situer entre l’ouest anglophone et l’est le monde arabe du Moyen-orient? » Je voudrais démontrer comment la tradition orientaliste, telle qu’elle a été définie par Edward Said (1978), a contribué a mon état de confusion, frustration et aliénation et a l’impossibilité de me retrouver « bien dans ma peau », dans ma situation a l’intérieur d’une toile de tensions historiques, ethniques, linguistiques, sociales et culturelles. J’ai tenté de décrire comment, apres mon instruction dans une école anglaise dirigée par des missionnaires, dans le contexte d’une culture palestinienne de dépossession et de diaspora, cette scolarisation a eu, comme résultat, une situation paradoxale qui, a la fois, m’aliénait et m’alimentait. J’y démontre aussi comment l’enquête narrative, selon le modele de Clandinin and Connelly (1995, 2000), m’a permis de comprendre et de communiquer mon identité véritable, qui je suis comme enseignante dans les contextes sociaux multiples que j’ai connus. [...]

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