This study illustrates how stories about people's experiences half a century ago can still be of educational value today. Using as a case example an interview-based study with war-brides who came to Canada after World War II, the authors show how reflexive narrative research can be a catalyst for learning for several groups of people on at least…

We examined the complexities of developing and implementing school curricula that reflect the goals for equality for students outlined in the Canadian Multiculturalism Act. Stories of teaching and learning experiences were presented to teacher-researchers as a means of generating discussion about differences in perspective pertaining to the…

At an elementary school in inner city Toronto, I am working with the principal, a kernel group of primary teachers, and the school's technician to develop children's digital literacies. Main Street School is dedicated to the pursuit of social equity for its population of grade K-5 students who are characterized by high multiculturalism and low…

In this article the author interprets a teaching story, written over a decade ago, about a troubling student who failed her course. Using George Lakoff's and Mark Johnson's cognitive linguistic theory, she shows how the conceptual metaphors implicit in her interactions with the student prevented her from responding helpfully to the student's…

This paper reports on qualitative research with 8 board members and 8 directors of women's social action organizations. A poststructural reading of the narrative data gives voice to an undertheorized aspect of humanist relational learning in women's organizations and makes visible the power-relationships. The power relationships are explored and…

This narrative recounts the disruption of my graduate research project by persistent, self-reflexive questioning of the process of doing independent research for the first time, and draws its texts from the resulting master's thesis. In this story, the ethnographic method I chose initially to study the experience of women returning to school to…

In this paper, I share stories that provide sites of inquiry for the (re)interpretation of my own educative experience. Crossing time, I (re)visit and (re)construct seminal events in my life using knowledge gleaned in the intervening years to come to see how these life stories inform and guide me in the present. I use my own stories to enhance my…

Stories that were written by my grandfather at the turn of the 20th century spiraled into my daily life as a nurse-teacher at the turn of the 21st century. In this paper, I explore a common plotline of my Afi (Islandic for grandfather) and me as pioneers by linking his life stories to the tensions I experience in my contemporary professional…

In this paper, I examine some of the past and current issues in anti-colonial discourse by briefly reviewing the ideas of thirteen anti-colonial scholars from different regions of the world. I relate these ideas to the discussion of knowledge production and indigenous knowledges. I also examine some critical areas that require more attention from…

This study examined 20th Century Canadian history textbooks authorized in British Columbia, for their portrayals of women. The texts do not adequately reflect feminist scholarship nor societal changes. The nation building narrative of the textbooks precludes the inclusion of women in important ways. In the interwar years, the women who appear in…

This paper explores the prospects of using critical realism as a guiding philosophy for critical inquiry in the field of educational administration. A relatively recent philosophy in the social sciences, critical realism offers an alternative framework for researchers engaged in empirical work that is aimed at transforming undesirable social…

Who are we as teachers and what constitutes a desirable educational experience? Two teachers, one Chinese and the other a white Canadian, tell "a single story [of teaching], integrated by our sense of ourselves" (Crites, 1971, p. 303). Our storytelling is enabled by metaphors and images that serve as tools for reflecting on our actions in life and…

Cyber-bullying is a psychologically devastating form of social cruelty among adolescents. This paper reviews the current policy vacuum as it relates to the legal obligations and reasonable expectations of schools to monitor and supervise on-line discourse, while balancing student safety, education, and interaction in virtual space. The paper opens…

The authors begin with a discussion of the duality in how children are viewed in both international and domestic law. Children are viewed as both under the protection and authority of adults, at the same time as being rights bearing individuals. Following recognition of the difficult tension created by this duality, these authors focus on its…

This paper examines the evolving Canadian jurisprudence at the appellate court level to outline the emerging definition--what is termed the "judicial construction"--of the role of the teacher. "Judicial construction" is a phrase intended to capture the attribution by judges of the social and educational significance of teachers. It is a phrase…