The purpose of this autoethnographic study was to examine three questions: (a) how did my view of myself as a non-Aboriginal educator change as a result of teaching in an Aboriginal cultural context, (b) how did my teaching philosophy and pedagogical approach change as a result of teaching in an Aboriginal cultural context, and (c) how did my sense of community and relatedness to the people I interacted with change due to increased cultural awareness and exposure to Aboriginal cultures? Data from my time in my teacher education program and teaching in Klemtu, BC was collected, and Mezirow’s (1997) transformative learning theory was used to analyze the shift that I made in these three areas. Finally, recommendations were made to teacher education programs and future non-Aboriginal educators who choose to teach in Aboriginal-run schools.

This thesis examines the tenets and approaches of integrative learning for sustainability, and critiques the adequacy and effectiveness of conventional, higher education practices in preparing students for what is an increasingly uncertain future. At the centre of this inquiry is the study of a fourth year, undergraduate field course from the School of Environmental Studies at the University of Victoria that took an integrative, whole-person approach to sustainability in light of integral systems theory. The course provided students with an experiential and integrative learning approach to the study of sustainability that sought to engage the multiple intelligences of students, issuing from their intellectual, physical, social, and spiritual dimensions. To support this process, the course aimed at meeting the needs associated with these facets through diverse learning experiences that included contemplative exercises, the development of a learning community, a critical examination of course readings and experience in service learning activities. The evaluative research of the course’s impacts examined the learning experiences from the students’ perspective to identify which experiences and approaches were most meaningful. The enquiry also investigated which, if any, of these experiences led to enduring personal transformation and/or community action. The methodology undertaken involved a phenomenological examination of two small group interviews with six of the participating students, as well as an analysis of the six students’ written reflection assignments. The results of this research show the effectiveness and impact of some of the distinctive approaches of the course, namely the powerful effects of experiential learning, community based learning and the provision of time and space for personal and group reflection. These activities supported students in broadening and changing their view of themselves, their sense community, as well as provided opportunities for students to engage in sustainable practices. / Graduate

This study examines transformative learning in the context of an annual First Nations journey in traditional cedar dugout canoes tracing ancestral trading routes between Western Washington and British Columbia. Transformative learning is a shift or change in perspective of self, life, and the world. The goal was: to illuminate the role of Indigenous cultures in facilitating transformative learning for Indigenous and non-Indigenous learners; to contribute to the development of transformative learning theory; to provide research that contributes convergent solutions to global issues and the development of interdisciplinary methodology, integrating Western and Indigenous worldviews; and to construct an integrated transformative program for participants to ensure that the results benefit them. To achieve these goals, an Integrated Voice Approach (IVA) was applied, piecing together different techniques, tools, methods, representations and interpretations to construct a multi-faceted reality. The IVA is constructed through the use of five “voices” strengthened by building on each other: Indigenous Voice, Grounded Theory Voice, Auto-ethnographic Voice, Ethno-ecological Voice, and Integrative Voice, harmonizing the previous four voices. Demonstrated here are an integration of interviews, researcher field notes, participation, observations and photographs, revealing that transformative learning in this context is dependent on the cultural landscape, cultural memory and somatic and embodied knowing, enacted in a repeating cycle of paddling, circling, dancing, singing, storytelling and drumming. The components of this learning process are measured through mental, emotional, spiritual and physical indicators and draw on traditional ecological knowledge and wisdom. The study develops guiding principles to provide a foundation for future curriculum development for transformative learning. / Graduate

The aim of the study on which this thesis is based was to gain an understanding of the life situation of street children in Kenya and to investigate how caring institutions care for these children.  A reflexive ethnographic approach was used to facilitate entry into the children’s sub-culture and the work contexts of the caregivers to better understand how the children live on the streets and how the caregivers work with the children. A fundamental aim of the research was to develop interventions to care; one of the reasons why we also used the interpretive description approach. Method and data source triangulation was used. Field notes, tape, video, and photography were used to record the data.  Participant observation, group discussions, individual interviews, home visits, key informant interviews, participatory workshops and clinical findings were used for data collection in Studies I and II.  In addition to observation, interviews were conducted with caregivers for study III, while written narratives from learners attending adult education developed and implemented during the research period provided data for study IV.  Study I indicated that food, shelter and education were the main concerns for the children and that they had strong social bonds and used support networks as a survival strategy.  Study II provided a deeper understanding of the street culture, revealing how the boys are organised, patterns of substance use, home spaces in the streets and networks of support. The boys indicated that they wanted to leave the streets but opposed being moved to existing institutions of care. A group home was therefore developed in collaboration with members of the category “begging boys”.  Study III indicated how the caregivers’ interactions with the children were crucial in children’s decisions to leave the streets, to be initiated into residential care, undergo rehabilitation and to be reintegrated into society.  Caregivers who attempted to use participatory approaches and took time to establish rapport were more successful with the children.  Study IV suggested that the composition of learners, course content grounded on research, caregivers’ reflections and discursive role of researchers and facilitators, all contributed to adult learning that transformed the learners’ perspectives and practice.

In a world of increasing religious/political tensions and conflicts this study asks, what is the transformative significance of an arts and ritual-based approach to developing and encouraging women’s spiritual and multi-faith leadership? To counter destructive worldviews and practices that have divided people historically, politically, personally and sacredly, the study reinforces the political and spiritual value of women spiritual and multi-faith leaders creating and holding sacred space for truth making and world making. An a/r/tographic and mindful inquiry was engaged to assist self and group reflection within a group of women committed to multi-faith education and leadership in their communities. The objectives of the study were: 1) to explore through collaboration, ritual and art making processes the women’s experience of knowing and not knowing, 2) to articulate a curriculum for multi-faith consciousness raising, and 3) to develop a pedagogy and methodology that can serve as a catalyst for individual and societal change and transformation. The co-participants/co-inquirers (including the lead researcher as a member of the group) are fourteen women, who practice within eleven different religions and/or spiritual backgrounds, and who are part of a volunteer planning team that organizes an annual women’s multi-faith conference (Women’s Spirituality Celebration) in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The aesthetic/ritual structure of the labyrinth served as a cross-cultural multi-faith symbol in guiding the dissertation, which includes three art installations and four documentary DVDs of the process and art. New understandings found in the study include: 1) the ethical sanctuary that a/r/tography as ritual enables for personal and collective change to take place within, 2) the addition of synecdoche to the renderings of a/r/tography, assisting a multi-dimensional spiral movement towards a whole a/r/tographic practice, 3) a lived and radically relational curriculum of philetics within loving community that drew forth the women’s erotic life force energy and enhanced the women’s ability to remember the power of the feminine aspect of the Divine, and 4) the decolonization of the Divine, art and education, which took place as a pedagogy of wholeness unfolded, requiring a dialectic relationship between restorative and transformative learning.

This M.A. thesis is a narrative inquiry into a westerner’s personal stories of teaching and living in Thailand. It narrates the experiences of becoming an ajarn (a teacher), but moreover an ajarn farang (a white teacher) in a Thai university. As International Education programs are largely supplemented with western-developed curricula and teachers, what are the implications for a western teacher when material and pedagogy fails in a new cultural situation? How can a teacher reconcile feelings of power (as a perceived education authority) and powerlessness (as a cultural foreigner)? This narrative inquiry explores the role of story to make meaning out of otherwise uncertain situations. The stories are about experiences deemed emblematic of tensions and ideas employed by multiculturalism, postcolonialism, phenomenology, and transformative education. These discussions aim to expose and exploit borders of experience that exist for reasons of culture, colonialism, location, and race. The transformative exercise of exploring spaces between borders recognizes that people are characters inside one another’s stories, which thereby expands boundaries of identity to anticipate and embrace moments of uncertainty that can inspire innovative pedagogy because of cultural difference, and not in spite of it.

O papel das organizações e da racionalidade instrumental que direciona a tomada de decisão têm sido discutidos amplamente, em especial no que concerne à predominância do mercado sobre a vida humana, os problemas ambientais e o bem-estar humano sobre este planeta. Pesquisas acerca do desenvolvimento sustentável futuro apontam para um direcionamento a uma perspectiva mais humanista cujos valores conduzem a uma nova forma de entender o tema da sustentabilidade e de agir nas organizações, tendo o indivíduo como agente de mudança. Para Garrity (2012), a educação desempenha um papel crucial na mudança dos modelos mentais e de visão de mundo, possibilitando constituir um novo paradigma da sustentabilidade e da administração. Por meio da educação, pode-se pensar em uma mudança nos gestores futuros das organizações direcionados à sustentabilidade, e nesse desafio a Aprendizagem Transformadora (STERLING, 2011; BLAKE, STERLING & GOODSON 2013) tem se demonstrado como uma abordagem pedagógica que contribui com a mudança de visão de mundo, inferindo nos níveis mais profundos do conhecimento. Assim, o objetivo dessa pesquisa foi conceber uma proposta de aprendizagem transformadora integral sustentável, visando o desenvolvimento sustentável futuro baseado numa discussão epistemológico-ontológica das organizações atuais. Esta pesquisa caracteriza-se por ser qualitativa, exploratória e analisou três estudos de caso: a disciplina de graduação Formação Integrada para a Sustentabilidade (FIS) da Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV); o MBA Governança e Inovação de Tecnologias Digitais com Sustentabilidade, da Universidade de São Paulo (USP); e, por fim, o curso Campus Internacional Brasil, da faculdade de administração da Universidade de Montreal (HEC Montreal-Canadá). Para a coleta de dados realizaram-se entrevistas com professores, alunos e parceiros dos cursos, observação participante, além de consultas a documentos e materiais institucionais. Os dados foram analisados e estruturados a partir do Método de Gioia. As dimensões da Aprendizagem Transformadora – Mudança de Paradigma na Educação e Nova visão de mundo, Elementos da Aprendizagem Transformadora e Perfil do egresso da Aprendizagem Transformadora – conduziram à elaboração da Proposta de Aprendizagem Transformadora Integral Sustentável. Além disso os resultados indicam que uma pedagogia mais crítica, com abordagem holística, metodologias experienciais, professores envolvidos e integrados com o tema, podem conduzir a uma transformação dos alunos e uma aplicação dos princípios da sustentabilidade nas organizações em que atuam. Os resultados dessa pesquisa visam contribuir para que cada vez mais iniciativas educacionais transformadoras possam se concretizar, visando o desenvolvimento integral discente, a construção de uma nova racionalidade para a administração, corroborando, assim, com o desenvolvimento sustentável futuro. / The role of organizations and instrumental rationality that drives decision making have been widely discussed, especially because of market dominance on human life, environmental problems and human well being on this planet. Researches on future sustainable development indicate a direction to a more humanistic perspective whose values lead to a new way of understanding sustainability and acting in organizations, and the individual is the central in this role. To Garrity (2012), education plays a crucial role in changing mental models and worldview, enabling to constitute a new paradigm of sustainability and management. Through education, it’s possible to realize a change in future managers directed to sustainability, and on this challenge Transformative Learning (STERLING, 2011; BLAKE, STERLING & Goodson 2013) has been demonstrated as a pedagogical approach that contributes to change worldview, implying the deepest levels of knowledge. So, the main goal of this research was to design a proposal for a sustainable integral transformative learning, aiming a future sustainable development based on epistemological and ontological discussion of current organizations. This research is characterized as qualitative, exploratory and has analyzed three case studies: the undergraduate course Formação Integrada para a Sustentabilidade (FIS) from Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV); MBA Governance and Innovation with Digital Technologies and Sustainability, from Universidade de São Paulo (USP); and finally, the course International Campus Brazil, of HEC Montreal-Canada. For data collection, interviews were done with teachers, students and partners, besides participant observation, and documents and institutional materials were consulted. Data were analyzed and structured by Gioia method. The dimensions of Transformative Learning – Change on Education Paradigm and New world view, Transformative Learning Elements, egress profile of Transforming Learning - led to the development of a proposal for a sustainable integral transformative learning. In addition, the results indicate that a more critical and holistic pedagogy, experiential methodologies, teachers involved and integrated with the subject of sustainability, can lead to a transformation on students and a new practice guided by the principles of sustainability in organizations where they work. The results of this research can contribute to other transformative educational initiatives, to students integral development, to the construction of a new rationality for management, and, thus, helping to achieve future sustainable development.

abstract: According to national data, there continues to be an ongoing achievement gap between students with disabilities and their non-disabled peers (USDE, n.d.b). This data is representative of a continued disparity in academic performance for students in local Arizona school districts. To address this gap, many districts have implemented inclusion models in which students with disabilities spend increasing amounts of time in general education classrooms, in some cases for the majority of or all of their school day. However, the persistence of the achievement gap suggests that general education teachers working in inclusion models may be lacking systematic instructional methods for ensuring access to the curriculum for those with disabilities and other diverse learning needs. The purpose of this action research study was to examine the impact that a series of professional development workshops had on teacher beliefs and understanding of disability, intelligence, and accessible pedagogy. The study was conducted over the course of a school semester at a kindergarten through 8th grade school in a large, semi-rural school district in southeastern Arizona. Ten teachers from a variety of grade levels and subject areas participated in the study along with a school psychologist and two school administrators. Theoretical frameworks guiding this project included critical disability theory, growth mindset, universal design for learning, and transformative learning theory. A mixed-methods action research approach was used to collect both qualitative and quantitative data in the form of surveys, interviews, and written reflections. The workshop series included five modules that began with activities fostering critical reflection of assumptions regarding disability and intelligence and ended with pedagogical strategies in the form of universal design for learning. The results indicate that the innovation was successful in reshaping participant views of disability, intelligence, and pedagogy; however, changes in classroom instruction were small. Implications for future research and practice include more extended sessions on universal design for learning and a more diverse sample of participants. Workshop sessions utilized a variety of active learning activities that were well received by participants and will be included in future professional learning plans across the district. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Leadership and Innovation 2018

abstract: Criticisms of technocratic and managerial sustainability responses to global environmental change have led scholars to argue for transformative shifts in ideology, policy, and practice favoring alternative, plural transformation pathways to sustainability. This raises key debates around how we build transformative capacity and who will lead the way. To further this critical dialogue, this dissertation explores the potential for sustainability experiential learning (SEL) to serve as a capacity building mechanism for global ecological citizenship in support of transformation pathways to sustainable wellbeing. In the process it considers how the next generation of those primed for sustainability leadership identify with and negotiate diversity—of perceptions, values, agency, and lived experiences—in what constitutes sustainable wellbeing and the approaches needed to get there. Inspired by the STEPS (Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) Centre’s transformation pathways approach, this research proposes a Transformative Capacity Building model grounded in a Transformation Pathways to Sustainable Wellbeing framework that integrates and builds upon tenets of the original pathways approach with transformative learning, Value-Believe-Norm, and global ecological citizenship (eco-citizenship) theories and concepts. The proposed model and framework were applied to an in-depth ethnographic case study of sustainability experiential learning communities formed within the four Summer 2015 Global Sustainability Studies (GSS) programs at Arizona State University. Using mixed methods, including semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and Photovoice, this study examines the values, perceptions, and perceived agency of participants post-program in relation to the knowledge-making and mobilization processes that unfolded during their international GSS programs. Of particular interest are participants’ cognitive, moral, and affective engagement as SEL community members. Through multi-level thematic analyses, key values, perceptions, agency and engagement themes are identified and influencing relationships highlighted across the different SEL communities and programs. Implications of these factors and their relationships for capacity building for eco-citizenship and future program development are considered. The dissertation concludes by translating study findings into actionable pathways for future research AND practice, including the proposal of program development and implementation recommendations that could enable future sustainability experiential learning programs to better contribute to transformative capacity building for eco-citizenship. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Anthropology 2018

Submitted by Morgana Silva (morgana_linhares@yahoo.com.br) on 2016-06-16T16:17:55Z No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 1450218 bytes, checksum: 388d500565cd23691464e5086e5ca129 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Viviane Lima da Cunha (viviane@biblioteca.ufpb.br) on 2016-06-20T11:21:54Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 1450218 bytes, checksum: 388d500565cd23691464e5086e5ca129 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Viviane Lima da Cunha (viviane@biblioteca.ufpb.br) on 2016-06-20T11:23:03Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 1450218 bytes, checksum: 388d500565cd23691464e5086e5ca129 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-20T11:24:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 1450218 bytes, checksum: 388d500565cd23691464e5086e5ca129 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-02-29 / Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico - CNPq / The purpose of this research was to understand the consumer behavior of visually impaired people in consuming educational services during elementary school, aiming to develop initiatives to mitigate its vulnerability as consumer. The ethnographic research, developed in a NGO, which is engaged in the education of students with visual impairment in João Pessoa /PB, was preceded by a review of literature about the Transformative Consumer Research, the Consumer Vulnerability and the performance of visually impaired people as consumers with emphasis on the consumption of educational services. The data were collected through 17 narrative interviews with elementary school students supported by this institution, six in-depth interviews with managers and teachers of the NGO Lar, five interviews with relatives of these students, and seven months of participant observation inside the institution. The results of the research indicate that the schoolmates, teachers, school managers and NGOs that work with visually impaired people interfere directly in the consumption behavior of the subjects, being able to contribute or inhibit the subjective well-being of the students. In addition, the powerlessness before unfair taxes, the lack of open positions in public or private schools and the lack of adequate teaching materials are characteristics of the investigated context that accentuate the vulnerability state of respondents. Starting the debate in Marketing of educational services in elementary school and developing this research on the fundamentals of Transformative Consumer Research can be considered theoretical contributions of this study, which also has practical contributions to civil society organizations from Joao Pessoa. / A finalidade desta pesquisa foi conhecer o comportamento de consumo dos deficientes visuais ao usufruírem de serviços educacionais durante o ensino fundamental, de forma a desenvolver iniciativas voltadas para amenizar sua vulnerabilidade de consumo. A investigação etnográfica, desenvolvida numa ONG que atua na educação de alunos com deficiência visual em João Pessoa/PB, foi precedida de uma revisão de literatura sobre a Pesquisa Transformativa do Consumidor, a Vulnerabilidade do Consumidor e a atuação dos deficientes visuais enquanto consumidores, com ênfase para o consumo de serviços educacionais. Os dados foram coletados por meio de 17 entrevistas narrativas com alunos do ensino fundamental que frequentavam a instituição, seis entrevistas em profundidade com gestores e professores da ONG Lar, cinco entrevistas com responsáveis desses alunos e sete meses de observações participantes na instituição. Os resultados da pesquisa apontam os colegas da escola, os professores, os gestores escolares e as ONGs que atuam com deficientes visuais são atores que interferem diretamente no comportamento de consumo dos sujeitos de pesquisa, sendo capazes de contribuir ou inibir o bem-estar subjetivo dos alunos. Além disso, a impotência diante da cobrança de taxas abusivas, a falta de vagas em escolas públicas ou privadas e a ausência de materiais didáticos adequados são características do contexto investigado que acentuam o estado de vulnerabilidade dos entrevistados. Iniciar o debate em marketing sobre a prestação de serviços educacionais no ensino fundamental e desenvolver esta pesquisa sob os fundamentos da Pesquisa Transformativa do Consumidor podem ser consideradas contribuições teóricas deste estudo, que ainda possui contribuições práticas para organizações da sociedade civil de João Pessoa.