interdependent *with* or interdependent *upon*?

probably not important, but which is it:
interdependent with, or interdependent upon?
or does it depend on context?
(or, is there an altogether better way of putting it than that anyway???)

the brain's just melting a little... any ideas welcome
- k

funding denied

Well, no SSHRC for me, and am on the wait-list for OGS .

In the interest of full disclosure, here's the project i pitched--good enough to get me into Communications and Culture at Ryerson/York, but nothing else so far...

Insights, ideas, scathing criticisms, biting commentaries—all are welcome!

- k

Seeing Learning
Towards a Critical Visual Pedagogy of Classroom Learning

Background and Statement of Problem

Although we exist in a profoundly visual culture, there are relatively few contemporary examples of photography-based education in either public school or community-based settings. Each is rare, but each is also distinct: public school photography instruction typically emphasizes technological and vocational aims at only the most senior levels (or “vo-tech” [Goldfarb 2004; Newbury 1997]), while community-based photographic education has a rich history of innovative and critical practice across a range of sites and focused towards a diverse audience. Such practice includes community arts initiatives (Braden 1983, Barndt 2006), research projects utilizing “photovoice” (Wang and Burris 1997, McIntyre 2000) or “talking pictures” (Bunster 1978) techniques, and popular education practices (Barndt 1991). Where critical, school-based learning does exist it is often disconnected from similar practices happening both locally and around the globe (Isherwood and Stanley 1994, Brake 1996, Kist 2005). It is not clear whether community-based practice fares any better (Augaitis, et al. 1995). This project will document examples of photographic practice in public education and community-based settings from the Toronto area in order to articulate a critical visual pedagogy of photographic communication.

This doctoral research project has two primary aims. First, to depict what current practices of photography-based education look like in order to describe the various agents involved, the various pedagogical and technical activities in which they are engaged, and the stated aims and goals of such practices. Attention will be paid to the various traits that align or distinguish public education from community-based practice, and vice versa. Secondly, this research will assess the significance of photographic learning, both in local settings and more broadly across the Ontario education system. I will analyze what factors constitute critical photographic learning for teachers, students, community members, and at a local level, while also considering what such a visual pedagogy both offers and demands of a publicly funded system. Ethnographic interviews with key stakeholders from schools and communities from the Toronto area and photographic documentation of these learning spaces will contribute to this descriptive and analytical survey of the practices, agents, and technologies involved in photographic education. In addition, several action research projects will be initiated at these sites in order to develop of a theoretical framework which situates a critical visual pedagogy within discourses of institutional change and broader practices of social activism.

The goal of this research is to describe and articulate an alternative educational practice which emphasizes visual dimensions to learning in addition to traditional language- and text-based practices. The study will fill in a gap between media literacy education research focused on formal school settings and action research found in community-based practices. The notion of a “critical visual pedagogy” I will develop is clearly indebted to educators and scholars in the Freirian tradition, for whom becoming literate is an emancipatory process and “naming the world” (Freire 1970) is inextricably linked to the speech acts implied in the “photovoice” (Wang and Burris 1997) or “talking pictures” (Bunster 1978) methods I intend to employ. Yet this concept is also related to the tradition of critical theory, particularly as it has been applied to studies of power relations in institutional organizations (Smith 1993, Darville 1995), state-based systems (Lloyd and Thomas 1998, Sears 2004), and media networks (Enzensberger 1970).

Bibliography

Augaitis, D., Falk, L., Gilbert, S., & Moser, M. A. (Eds.). (1995). Questions of Community: Artists, Audiences, Coalitions. Banff: Banff Centre Press.

Barndt, D. (2006). Wild Fire: Art As Activism. Toronto: Sumach Press.

Barndt, D. (1991). To Change This House: Popular Education Under the Sandinistas. Toronto: Between the Lines.

Braden, S. (1983). Committing Photography. Pluto Press.

Brake, J. (1996). Changing Images: Photography, Education and Young People. Salford: Viewpoint Photography.

Bunster, X. (1978). Talking pictures: field method and visual mode. Studies in the Anthropology of Visual Communication, 5(1), 37-55.

Darville, R. (1995). Literacy, Experience, Power. In M. L. Campbell & A. Manicom (Eds.), Knowledge, Experience, and Ruling Relations: Studies in the Social Organization of Knowledge. Toronto: University of Toronto Press (pp. 249-261).

Enzensberger, H. M. (1970). Constituents of a Theory of the Media. New Left Review, 64.

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum.

Goldfarb, B. (2002). Visual Pedagogy: Media Cultures in and Beyond the Classroom. Durham: Duke University Press.

Isherwood, S., & Stanley, N. (Eds.). (1994). Creating Vision: Photography and the National Curriculum. Manchester: Arts Council of Great Britain.

Kist, W. (2005). New Literacies in Action: Teaching and Learning in Multiple Media. New York: Teachers College Press.

Lloyd, D., & Thomas, P. (1998). Culture and the State. New York: Routledge.

McIntyre, A. (2000). Constructing Meaning About Violence, School, and Community: Participatory Action Research with Urban Youth. The Urban Review, 32(2), 123-154.

Newbury, D. (1997). Talking about Practice: Photography Students, Photographic Culture and Professional Identities. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 18(3), 421-434.

Sears, A. (2003). Retooling the Mind Factory: Education in a Lean State. Aurora: Garamond Press.

Smith, D. E. (1993). Texts, Facts and Femininity: Exploring the Relations of Ruling. New York: Routledge.

Wang, C., & Burris, M. A. (1997). Photovoice: Concept, Methodology and Use for Participatory Needs Assessment. Health Education & Behavior, 24(3), 369-387.

blog on "Rethinking Development Economics"

possibly of interest?
http://www.rethinkingdevelopment.blogspot.com/

i missed the deadline!!

maybe i had subconscious fears of political disruptions, but i procrastinated (or alternately, blame my office for too much work) on the isee in nairobi conference, and was so tired tonight but debated getting it in by midnight on the deadline. however, the secretariat is in new zealand and is *closed*, so i missed it, even though i wasn't planning to go anyways, i really wanted to go through the process.

maybe i am lucky this week, i searched for a bit and found this list, and i *am* carefully debating hooking up with friends in thailand in august, and what do you know? there is an energy security and climate change conference in bangkok right after i plan on landing there, with academics from all over, including UBC and Toronto, so maybe my vacation will include improving my academic credentials as well. and maybe there is even something relevant closer to home, but i doubt it--sadly, i think everything in canada is about the tar sands these days, and i think my masters work actually is more likely to be employed in a country facing real scarcity.

CFP: A Return to the Senses

sounds like an interesting multidisciplinary conference--at Trent, no less!
http://www.nocaptionneeded.com/?p=840

k

toronto star for cheep

well, yes, i guess it is the star, but it's $16 for four months (a buck a week), seven days a week!

here's the link:
https://secure.thestar.com/NASApp/CSSApp/do/placeOrder?service=7DAY&promo=SUMROFFR&area=GTA

... in any case, it is local, and at least it's not the sun.

the fake photo was not my idea!

FYI: I wrote a short piece for the LTO newsletter on page 6:
http://www.ryerson.ca/lt/about/exchange_newsletter/march08.pdf

"hey, remember that book review you did..."

so my review of the new media handbook and the media literacy reader finally got published in issue 1 of vol. 23 of Visual Studies, Apr. 2008. please read it now, regardless of what continent you are on.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14725860801908585

IDRC Doctoral Research Awards

These awards are relevant to a few of us, I think.


1) IDRC Doctoral Research Awards
Deadline to receive applications: April 1, 2008
For more information: http://www.idrc.ca/awards/ev-23374-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html

Bourses du CRDI aux chercheurs candidates au doctorat
Date limite pour recevoir les demandes : le 1^er avril 2008
Pour plus d’informations : http://www.idrc.ca/fr/ev-23374-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html

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2) Canadian Window on International Development
Deadline to receive applications: April 1, 2008
For more information: http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-23376-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html

Bourses Regard canadien sur le développement international
Date limite pour recevoir les demandes : le 1^er avril 2008
Pour plus d’informations : http://www.idrc.ca/fr/ev-23376-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html

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3) Ecopolis Graduate Research and Design Awards
Deadline to receive applications: May 15, 2008
For more information: http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-88111-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html

Bourses de recherche et design Écopolis
Date limite pour recevoir les demandes : le 15 mai 2008
Pour plus d’informations : http://www.idrc.ca/fr/ev-88111-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html

Resilience theory and learning

Based on the idea of resilience and the adaptive cycle (below) Garry Peterson identified three different types of learning:

• • Incremental, (r to K)
  • Lurching, (omega to alpha)
  • Transforming, (panarchical)

  Incremental change and learning. This type of change
  occurs in the predictable development phase or from the r to K phase of the
  adaptive cycle. During these phases, models or schemas are assumed to be
  correct, and learning is characterized by collecting data or information to
  update these models. This type of learning is similar to the single loop
  learning of Argyris and Schon (1978). In bureaucratically dominated resource systems, the activity of learning is carried out largely by self-referential professionals or technocrats, who primarily view dealing with this type of change and learning as problem solution (Westley, in Press).
  
  Abrupt Change and Spasmodic Learning. This type of
  change is episodic, discontinuous and surprising. It is created by slow-fast
  dynamics that reveal the inadequacies of the underlying model or schema
  structure. It is the change described by transitions from the conservation phase (K) through the omega and renewal phases of the adaptive cycle. This can be manifest as an environmental crisis, where policy failure is undeniable
  (Gunderson et al., 1995) and results from an environmental cognitive dissonance. In this case, the learning is described as double-loop, where the underlying model or schema is questioned and rejected (Argyris and Schon, 1978). This is also characterized as problem reformation. In bureaucratic resource systems, this type of learning is facilitated by outside groups or charismatic integrators.
  
  Transformational Learning. This is the most dramatic
  type of change and requires the deepest type of learning. Cross-scale surprise or novelty surprises characterize this type of change and are related to
  interaction between different sets of labile variables. In these cases, learning
  involves solving problems of identifying problem domains, among sets of wicked and complex variables (Westley, in press). This is also described as
  evolutionary learning (Parsons and Clark, 1995) where not just new models or schema are developed, but also new paradigmatic structures (sensu Kuhn,
  1970).
  
  Argyris, C. and D. A. Schon. 1978. Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective. Addison-Wesley, Reading.
  Parsons, E. and W. Clark. 1995. Sustainable Development as Social Learning. In, Barriers and Bridges to the Renewal of Ecosystems and Institutions. Columbia University Press, New York.
  Westley, F. In Prep. The Devil in the Dynamics: Adaptive Management on the Front Lines. In Theories for Sustainable Futures. Gunderson and Holling, editors. Island Press.
  
  

I'm still more interested in looking at the integration of different epistemologies in adaptive management but maybe the educators in you would apprecite his take.