Elisabeth Taylor

Multi-paradigmatic Transformative research as/for teacher education: An integral perspective

How can science education research constitute an empowering form of professional development that generates essential higher-order skills for personally tackling the global eco-cultural crises of the twenty-first century? In this chapter, we argue that graduate research schools need to provide a range of epistemologies for novice researchers to engage in transformative learning about their own professional practices. Epistemological pluralism involves multiple research paradigms – interpretivism, criticalism, postmodernism. We outline the characteristics of these relatively new paradigms, consider how their methods can be combined, and illustrate how one such hybrid research method – critical auto|ethnography – has been employed by transformative culture studies researchers. We conclude by proposing an integral perspective which is inclusive of all research paradigms.

Moral Disengagement and Building Resilience to Violent Extremism: An Education Intervention

This article reports on the development of an education intervention, the Beyond Bali Education Resource funded by the Australian Governments’ Building Community Resilience Grants of the Federal Attorney Generals Department, that applies a conceptual framework grounded in moral disengagement theory. Beyond Bali is a five module program for schools that is specifically designed to build social cognitive resilience to violent extremism by engaging self-sanctions and preparing students to challenge the influence of violent extremism that can lead to moral disengagement. The theory of moral disengagement has been applied to the study of radicalization to violent extremism to explain how individuals can cognitively reconstruct the moral value of violence and carry out inhumane acts. The mechanisms of moral disengagement through which individuals justify violence, dehumanize victims, disregard the harmful consequences of violence and absolve themselves of blame have been used in the construction of violent extremist narratives. However, they have not been applied to the development of intervention strategies that aim to counter the radicalizing influences of violent extremist narratives.

Diverse, Disengaged and Reactive: A Teacher’s Adaptation of Ethical Dilemma Story Pedagogy as a Strategy to Re-engage Learners in Education for Sustainability

It is of great concern that science education is failing to impress many young people to engage deeply in learning, in learning for a purpose other than preparing for tests and exams. Many of these future decision-makers demonstrate a sense of hopelessness and helplessness with regard to the challenges lying ahead of them, particularly global issues of sustainability, with many feeling disempowered. So, what can be done to reverse the trend of disengagement? In this chapter, we present an overview of ongoing research into science teachers’ adaptation of ethical dilemma story pedagogy as a classroom strategy for enacting socially responsible education with a special focus on sustainability. This pedagogical approach marries values and ethics education with science and environmental education. It promotes dilemma-based, content-related and values-dependent decision-making. Teachers participated in our research with a view to re-engaging academically and socioculturally diverse, and often disenchanted, learners in science education by linking ethical dilemma stories to science and sustainability topics directly relevant to community issues. Education for sustainability has far-reaching implications for many learning areas, especially science education which is well suited to providing the necessary knowledge, skills and values base for informed ethical decision-making with a view to achieving a sustainable future for the world. Drawing on the results of a recent case study of an innovative science teacher engaging her students in education for sustainability, we address the question: What makes ethical dilemma story teaching compelling for students?

Mindfulness and Flow in Transpersonal Art Therapy

Writing this chapter has given me the opportunity to explore in-depth the meaning of mindfulness for me at a personal and professional level. As a teacher, teacher educator, transformative education researcher and recently also counselor and art therapist, the necessity of being mindful has arisen in a variety of contexts and for different reasons.

When Policy and Infrastructure Provisions are Exemplary but still Insufficient: Paradoxes Affecting Education for Sustainability (EfS) in a Custom-designed Sustainability School

Schools willing to implement education for sustainability (EfS) commonly find themselves confronted with curricula, school grounds and buildings and teaching practices that do not lend themselves easily to best practice EfS. In this article, we present what we learned about some of the challenges confronted daily by the staff of a purpose-built sustainability primary school situated in a ‘green’ suburb in Western Australia. Over the period of a year, we regularly engaged with the staff of the school through semi-structured, in-depth interviews and classroom observations as part of an interpretive ethnographic study. We identified three key themes—policy infrastructure, physical infrastructure and pedagogical infrastructure—that serve as both affordances and counter-affordances to best practice EfS. Given the paradoxical interplay of the affordances and counter-affordances shaping the school’s implementation of EfS, we suggest that overcoming these paradoxes requires no less than a transformation of school culture.

Recovery from Eating Disorders and Child Sexual Abuse

In this chapter I present a case study in which a client uses transpersonal art therapy to address personal issues such as depression to re-build resilience and personal sustainability.

“Beyond Bali”: a transformative education approach for developing community resilience to violent extremism

Abstract The Bali bombings of 2002 and 2005 confronted Australia and its neighbours directly for the first time with the dangers of violent extremism. Since then, the Bali Peace Park Association (BPPA), consisting of former victims, their families and other interested parties, has been lobbying for the creation of the “Bali Peace Park” to be built on one of the bombing sites. Peace parks have been conceived as community-driven projects against violent extremism, and the planned Bali Peace Park embodies this principle. In 2012, the BPPA initiated “Beyond Bali”, an ambitious and highly relevant curriculum development project, and secured funding from the Australian Attorney General’s Department. Drawing on the expertise of a counter-terrorism expert, two university education experts and the first-hand experiences of victims and their families, the Beyond Bali curriculum package was created. Beyond Bali covers a range of topics and activities, including social science studies and ethical dilemma learning, is suitable for Years 8 and 9 students studying the Australian Curriculum, and is available for free from the BPPA: http://www.balipeacepark.com.au/beyond-bali-education-package.html. In this paper we position Beyond Bali as a transformative education resource within the fields of peace and global education and argue that it embodies UNESCO’s “learning to be” principle.

Reaching out to the disaffected: mindfulness and art therapy for building resilience to violent extremism

ABSTRACT Alienation and moral disengagement have been described in the literature as some of the key factors for making some people more vulnerable to violent extremism. In this paper, I explore how mindfulness training, especially when paired with art therapy strategies, has great potential for supporting targeted educational measures for building resilience to violent extremism in individuals and communities.