CAARE aims to promote practitioners’ active engagement in critical inquiry into their own practice as part of their ongoing professional development in seeking and generating new knowledge and quality teaching practices.
Through workshops, forums, and sharing of online resources, we hope to achieve the goals below:
Provide simple guidelines to help interested practitioners to set up their own action research activities as they inquire into their own practice.
Provide workshops to help practitioners to work with action research or collaborative research methodologies , e.g., identifying problems and questions, planning for change and implementing the evaluation and reflection processes.
Facilitate the knowledge exchange process by providing a virtual space for practitioners to discuss issues regarding reflective practice and share success stories and lessons learned from past practices taking into account of the institutional and wider social and cultural contexts.
Connect with other like-minded practitioners and researchers for ongoing creative and critical dialogue and seek possibilities for collaborative opportunities.
All Western University events were unfortunately CANCELLED due to global pandemic. Our next events will be hosted at the University of Alberta in Edmonton in May 2021 and will be announced soon. Thank you!
Walking with A/r/tography Canadian Association for Action Research in Education proudly presents
CAARE-ACRAÉKeynote 2020* - Dr. Rita L. Irwin Sunday, May 31, 2020 at 11:15 AM – 12:15 PM (Session 3.2) John George Althouse Faculty of Education Building (FEB) Room 2054 Western University, London, Ontario * Spotlight Event [Postponed until CSSE 2021]
Abstract: In this talk, Rita Irwin offers an introduction to a form of arts-based research called a/r/tography. A research approach and methodology that emphasizes the practices of making, teaching and learning through living inquiry, Rita will lay out some of its early premises and how action research figured prominently in its early iterations before elaborating on how it has developed over time by presenting prominent conceptual features across time. Throughout, there is an emphasis on a/r/tography’s ontological positioning unfolded through an artistic impulse and an invitation to pedagogy. The presentation ends with four brief propositional examples of recent graduate work in a/r/tography.
Biography: Rita L. Irwin is a Distinguished University Scholar and Professor of Art Education and Curriculum Studies at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Her research interests include preservice and inservice arts teacher education, artist-in-schools programs, as well as the intersections between arts education, curriculum studies and socio-cultural issues. Her research involves action research, case study, image-based research, and many forms of arts-based educational inquiry including a/r/tography. She is also committed to leadership in arts education, curriculum studies and education organizations, and is a past President of the Canadian Society for the Study of Education.
You are invited to continue the discussion with Keynote Speaker, Dr. Rita L. Irwin, at the “Action Research and Arts-Based Research” Symposium (Please see details below).
Working Group Symposium: Action Research and Arts-Based Research Sunday, May 31st at 12:25 PM - 1:15PM (Session 4.2), John George Althouse Faculty of Education Building Room FEB 2054 Speaker:Rita L. Irwin (UBC) Chair: Kurt Clausen (Nipissing)
Working Group Symposium: Action Research and Indigenous Education: Going Beyond Eurocentric Scholarships Monday, June 1st at 11:15 AM - 12:15PM (Session 10.2), John George Althouse Faculty of Education Building Room FEB 1142 Speaker:Jan Hare (UBC) Chair: Sunny Man Chu Lau (Bishop's)
Book Launch Event:Action Research in Education: Canadian Perspective Monday, June 1st at 12:25 PM - 1:20 PM (Session 11.2), John George Althouse Faculty of Education Building Room FEB 1142
Symposium Spotlight Event:NCARE - A Network of Critical Action Researchers in Education: Processes & Realizations Tuesday, June 2nd at 1:30 PM - 2:45 PM (Session 19.3), Elborn College (EC) Room 1548 Speakers:Yecid Ortega (OISE-UT), Sreemali Herath (Open Sri Lanka), Antoinette Gagné (OISE-UT), Amir Kalan (OISE-UT), and Claudio Jamarillo (OISE-UT)
Enhancing Indigenous Perspectives through Collaborative Inquiry in Teacher Education Coursework Canadian Association for Action Research in Education proudly presents
CAARE Keynote 2019 - Dr. Jan Hare Sunday June 2, 2019 at 11:15 AM – 12:15 PM (Session 3.2) Henry Angus Building (ANGU) Room 491 University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC
Abstract: Changes in Indigenous education policies and practices are bringing new opportunities to enhancing and enriching teacher education. This presentation will draw on my recent teacher education research, which is engaging educators through observations and reflections on their practices. They explore with me how identity, teaching, and curriculum intersect in their teaching of Indigenous perspectives, knowledges, pedagogies, and materials. Through their explorations we are coming to see the nature of vulnerabilities among instructors in taking up this critical area in the classroom, which speaks to a need to develop nuanced strategies for building relationships and understanding among teacher educators and pre-service students. This talk will also consider how the traditions of collaborative inquiry, as a form of action research, can be seen as mobilizing concepts drawn from Indigenous research traditions.
Biography: Dr. Jan Hare is an Anishaabe scholar and educator from the M’Chigeeng First Nation. She is also the Associate Dean for Indigenous Education in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia, where she also serves as Director for NITEP– the Faculty’s Indigenous Teacher Education Program. Jan has developed a program of research concerned with improving educational outcome for Indigenous learners and centering Indigenous knowledge systems in early childhood, K to 12, through to post-secondary education. More recently, she is examining the curricular and pedagogical implications of current educational agendas on teaching and learning with particular attention to teacher education as a critical area of development across Canada. In two SSHRC-funded studies, she is examining how anti-colonial, decolonizing, and reconciliation frameworks are shaping instruction of Indigenous education coursework. The first study examines how identity mediates the teaching and learning of Indigenous education theories and practices in teacher education coursework in four faculties of education across Canada. The second study assesses the role of Indigenous knowledges in online learning environments as a source of learning, focusing on the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), Reconciliation Through Indigenous Education.
You are invited to continue the discussion with Keynote Speaker, Dr. Jan Hare, at the “Action Research and Indigenous Education: Going Beyond Eurocentric Scholarships” Symposium (Please see details below).
Working Group Symposium: Action Research and Indigenous Education: Going Beyond Eurocentric Scholarships Sunday June 2nd at 12:15 PM - 1:15PM (Session 4.1), Henry Angus Building (ANGU) Room 491 Speaker:Jan Hare (UBC) Chair: Sunny Man Chu Lau (Bishop's)
Abstract:If you are keen in discussing the CAARE’s 2019 Keynote themes of Indigenous perspectives, Teacher Education and Action Research, please attend for a stimulating discussion. We plan to use this session as a springboard for publication opportunities with the Canadian Journal of Action Research (CJAR). We welcome scholarly contributions to create a special issue by Fall 2020 on Indigenous perspectives and Action Research in CJAR. All submissions will go through a blind peer review process in accordance with CJAR.
Working Group Symposium:Choosing What Matters Over What Counts In spite of the Audited, Managerial Academy: Where does that leave Community-Engaged, Action, Participatory, and Other Alternative Research Designs Monday, June 3rd at 11:15 AM - 12:15 PM (Session 10.2), Aquatic Ecosystem Research Laboratory Building (AERL) Room 120 Chairs:Marc Spooner (Regina) with Kurt Clausen (Nipissing)
Panel Participants:
Budd Hall (School of Public Administration, University of Victoria)
Marie Battiste (Educational Foundations, University of Saskatchewan)
E. Wayne Ross (Department of Curriculum & Pedagogy, Faculty of Education, UBC)
Abstract: As has become the tradition with CAARE, this panel will use last year’s keynote focus as a springboard to continue the conversation. In this case, to examine how audit culture and New Public Management imperil action research and the imaginative possibilities inherent in teaching and research. Externally imposed accountability standards are, in practice, end-runs that allow states, outside organizations, or university administrations to effectively bypass academic freedom without direct confrontation. Rather, we are left with the banal herding of our “selves” through metric funnels onto performance treadmills. That is, even when outside agencies and administrator-managers are not overtly limiting academic freedom through direct intervention, the audit culture, through a litany of incentives and disincentives leaves little or no time for other forms of “uncounted” work. The following panel will examine various aspects and entry points into this topic from a variety of perspectives.
Symposium Spotlight Event:Collective Inventions in Uncertain Terrains: Three Action Research Projects for Social Change Tuesday, June 4th at 1:30 PM - 2:45 PM (Session 19.2), Neville Scarfe Building (SCRF) Room 260 Speakers: Dennis Sumara (Calgary), Claire Robson (Simon Fraser), and Joy Butler (UBC)
Symposium Extending Action Research Domain:Action Research in Teacher Education: Exchange and Partnerships Tuesday, June 4th at 4:30 PM - 5:45 PM (Session 21.2), Aquatic Ecosystem Research Laboratory Building (AERL) Room 120 Chairs: Glenda Black and Kurt Clausen (Nipissing)
Abstract: Calling all scholars, educators, and students interested in action research! Join us in a symposium to share insights, challenges, and successes of implementing action research in teacher education. The dialogue during the symposium aims to invoke interest in sharing course and project designs, solutions to challenges with scheduling, faculty, ethical review process, institutional barriers, and methodological issues to implementing action research.
Join us in a discussion on how we can collaborate on academic writing on the topic of Action Research in Teacher Education.
Symposium Roundtable:Graduate Student Engagement with Action Research Roundtables Wednesday, June 5th at 8:15 AM - 9:30 AM (Session 22.2), Neville Scarfe Building (SCRF) Room 203 Chairs: Kelly Kilgour (Ottawa) and Sunny Man Chu Lau (Bishop's)
Abstract: The value and legitimacy of action research (AR) has slowly grown and the literature acknowledges its increased usage for doctoral dissertations and leadership development for graduate students (Gibbs et al., 2017; Osterman et al., 2014). However, methodological support and mentorship meagrely exists for graduate students who conduct and publish AR. Graduate students would benefit from further mentorship opportunities within the Canadian Association of Action Research in Education (CAARE) community. This roundtable session aims to: a) provide a supportive opportunity and space for graduate students to share their AR projects with the community of action researchers and receive constructive feedback; and b) promote graduate students’ reflections and further engagements with AR as a way to build theory through practice. Students may present their ongoing or completed AR projects or an AR design at its initial proposal stage. The roundtable format encourages constructive peer feedback as well as further collective discussions regarding different AR initiatives. In sum, this session aims to foster a learning community for mentorship and exchange as well as provide a valuable resource and supportive network among graduate students and action researchers. Finally, it will promote greater dialogue and learning among the community of researchers within CAARE and CSSE.
Choosing What Matters Over What Counts —Community-Engaged, Action, Participatory, and Other Alternative Research Designs— Despite the Audited, Managerial Academy Canadian Association for Action Research in Education proudly presents
CAARE Keynote 2018 - Dr. Marc Spooner Sunday May 27, 2018 at 1:30 PM – 2:45 PM (Session 5.2) Room 623, Education Building (ED), University of Regina
Abstract: Audit culture and New Public Management imperil the critical and imaginative possibilities inherent in teaching and research. Audit culture renders us as auditable subjects, compelling us to conform to its own (ideological) notions of what counts as scholarship, and especially to, what can be easily quantified, tabulated, and standardized for the purposes of comparable benchmarking. When the tail then wags the dog by leveraging such narrowly applied metrics, whole realms of endeavour are devalued or left out of the equation altogether, including practices such as “slow” research, action research, community-based and participatory research designs, alternative forms of scholarship and dissemination, and public policy work. Doing what matters over what counts is always under constant threat of discountenance by a suffocating array of metrics in our increasingly audited and surveilled university. Following an examination of these fundamental changes to traditional collegial management practices, this presentation concludes with a series of calls to collective action and resistance.
Biography: Marc Spooner is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Regina. He specializes in qualitative and participatory action research at the intersections of theory and action on the ground. His interests include homelessness and poverty; audit culture and the effects of neoliberalization and corporatization on higher education; and social justice, activism, and participatory democracy. He has published in many venues, including peer-reviewed journals, book chapters, government reports, and a wide variety of popularizations. Together with colleagues at the University of Regina, he also co-hosts a popular education series that takes place in pubs—not on campus—entitled Talkin’ about School and Society. With James McNinch he is the editor of a recent book critically examining the academy entitled Dissident Knowledge in Higher Education, University of Regina Press.
You are invited to continue the discussion with Keynote Speaker, Dr. Marc Spooner, at the “Action Research in an Age of Neoliberalism” Symposium (Please see details below).
Working Group Symposium: Action Research in an Age of Neoliberalism Sunday May 27th at 3:00 - 4:15PM (Session 6.2), ED - Education Building Room 315 Speaker:Marc Spooner (Regina) Chair: Manu Sharma (Wisconsin-River Falls)
Abstract:If you are interested in discussing the themes that emerged out of CAARE’s 2018 Keynote on Neoliberalism and Action Research, please attend for a stimulating discussion. We hope to use this discussion as a springboard for a publication opportunity with the Canadian Journal of Action Research (CJAR). We welcome scholarly contributions to create a special issue by Fall 2019 on Neoliberalism and Action Research in CJAR. All submissions will go through a blind peer review process in accordance with CJAR.
Working Group Symposium:Ethics in Action Research: Process, Responsibilities, and Strategies Sunday, May 27th at 12:15 - 1:15PM (Session 4.1), ED - Education Building Room 623 Chairs:C. Darius Stonebanks (Bishop's) with Kurt Clausen (Nipissing) and Sunny Man Chu Lau (Bishop’s) Panel Participants: The gift of pain with transformative possibilities Richard Hovey(Faculty of Dentistry, McGill University) When local teacher leadership begins to fail in emancipation based endeavors Melanie Bennett-Stonebanks(Practice Teaching, Bishop's University) Teaching for social justice and PAR - Same struggle, different fronts Paul Orlowski(College of Education, University of Saskatchewan) The ethics of interpretation and representation when working with Indigenous students: Reflections from Peru Joseph Levitan(Integrated Studies of Education, McGill University) Professional and academic values in conflict: Walking a fragile tightrope! Fintan Sheerin(Intellectual Disability Nursing, Trinity College, Dublin)
Abstract: Action Research (AR) in Education (and related fields) are often characterized by including grassroots, emancipatory, care based and shared ownership approaches to identifying problems and advancing potential solutions. The results of such practices are anticipated hopes of constructive transformative change for participants, organizations and communities. Such laudable goals, such as AR endeavours with liberatory designs, require commitments on the part of all researchers towards human beings that sometimes expand past the formal or informal borders of the researcher's institutional norms. Whether it is the schoolroom teacher engaged in strategies to empower students who rank as lower priorities on administrators' agendas to demonstrate schoolboard success, or the professor who experiences a profound moment of engagement with community co-researchers in remote locations that fall outside original research ethics board's protocols, action researchers are often faced with ethical choices that confront written and unwritten expectations. Further complicating this methodological approach is the feature that makes it so appealing to activist oriented researchers; that being its fluidity and creativity of application to local needs. All the while, countless Action Researchers strive for the highest ethical standards, using the central strategies of the self-reflective spiral of action, observation and reflection to guide their decisions. This panel will share experiences of AR engagement and approaches to process, responsibilities and strategies in multiple contexts that help to inform discussions on ethical standards.
Action Research, the REB and the Apprehensions regarding Risk: Anticipating from the Known to the Unknown Canadian Association for Action Research in Education (CAARE) Keynote 2017 Sunday May 28 (9:45- 11:00, KHE - Kerr East 321B) Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario
Abstract: Hallmarked by a commitment to shared ownership, analysis and action with community (Kemmis & McTaggart, 2003), Action Research (AR) provides exciting possibilities that can lead to authentic and partnership based transformation, however the process to engage in this work can sometimes feel hampered by the Research Ethics Board (REB) process. This can be especially challenging when communities identify greater needs, and the collaborative pressures to develop tangible outcomes from AR, understandably, take on increased pertinence to all aspects of research, particularly in regard to identifying risk versus benefits. This crucial step of risk versus benefits analysis and interpretation can often be problematic to the AR community, in particular to those working in relationship with partners and contexts outside of norms of academia and the membership of the REB. AR field research in remote locations, as an example, often requires approaches that are fluid, adaptive and organic, and in keeping with AR’s key features, centers on invaluable input, leadership and direction from local community. However, this reflective fluidity in in the moment can sometimes appear at odds with established REB protocols, which may lead the research team to believe their work is being shaped by forces both unaccustomed and unaware of such realities, resulting in some researchers to view the REB as a hurdle, rather than an ally. As a member of both the REB and an AR team in rural Malawi, C. Darius Stonebanks will share his experiences in navigating the risk versus benefits conundrum.
Biography:C. Darius Stonebanks has been a member of Bishop’s University’s Research Ethics Board since 2009 and acted in the capacity as Chair for over four years. He has been awarded the divisional teaching award twice and the Chancellor’s teaching award in 2016. Among his publications are James Bay Cree and Higher Education: Issues of Identity and Culture Shock, the co-edited Teaching Against Islamophobia and the NAME’s Philip C. Chinn book award winning Muslim Voices in Schools. In 2009, he co-founded the ongoing interdisciplinary Action Research project, Transformative Praxis: Malawi, with local community in the rural region of Kasungu, Malawi, connecting social justice theory to practice. He is also the Primary Investigator on the SSHRC funded ethnographic research project examining the secular nature of Canadian public schools.
You are invited to the Symposium to continue the discussion from the above keynote: “Ethics in Action Research: Process, Responsibilities, and Strategies” – Facilitated by Sunny Lau (Bishop’s University) Sunday May 28 (11:15- 12:15, KHE - Kerr East 321B)
Working Group Symposium I: Sunday May 28 (11:15- 12:15, KHE - Kerr East 321B) Ethics in Action Research: Process, Responsibilities, and Strategies Ethics in Action Research: Process, Responsibilities, and Strategies This symposium will provide scholars interested in action research with insights on how to navigate the ethics review process when conducting action research. The dialogue will draw on this year's CAARE keynote speaker's address on Research Ethics in Action Research given by Dr. Christopher Stonebanks. Through theoretical discussions and sharing of practices and success stories, the goal of this symposium is to invoke interest in designing and implementing action research projects at various institutions by addressing the burning issues regarding the ethics review process, institutional barriers, and methodological challenges in educational action research. The symposium also aims to provide a platform for like-minded researchers for ongoing dialogue and possibilities for collaborative opportunities in future research and publications.
Working Group Symposium II: Sunday, May 28th (3:00-4:15pm, KHE - Kerr East 118) The Polygraph titled “The Future of Action Research in Education: A Canadian Perspective” In this symposium, ten of the twenty authors who have contributed to a book entitled “The Future of Action Research in Education: A Canadian Perspective” will provide insights on their chapters in progress. This symposium will generate discussion about action research scholarship in the field of teacher education from all across Canada. The symposium will be facilitated by the editors of this book, Dr. Kurt Clausen and Dr. Glenda Black. The goal of this symposium and polygraph volume is to create awareness and unification around the importance of action research in teacher education across the country.