Browsing by Author "McNinch, James"

Now showing 1 - 13 of 13

Open Access
Be(come)ing an English Speaker: Positioning of South Korean Students in a Canadian University
(Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina, 2016-12) Burton, Jennifer Lynn; Sterzuk, Andrea; Hart, Paul; McNinch, James
The growth of international students across Canadian universities means classrooms are increasingly linguistically diverse. This change affects the learning and relationships that occur between English language learners and speakers. Grounded in poststructuralist understandings of language and identity and Davies and Harré’s (1990) positioning theory, this thesis explores six South Korean student’s English language experiences in a Canadian university. Through informal conversational exchanges, narrative dialogue journals, and a personal researcher diary, this qualitative study is concerned with student subject positions and identity construction pertaining to language. What emerges from the data is what I term moments of tension which include students’ encounters with ESL labels, native-speaker identity, desire for fluency, English fear, imagined communities, employment in Canada, teacher respect, direct communication, and Korean relations. These moments of tension serve as entry points for exploring similarities and differences across participants’ experiences of being an English speaker. Students accept or reject varying subject positions within discourses that position and construct their identity in particular ways. Students negotiate silence, emotion, and responsibilities of interlocutor burden in intercultural communication—unveiling complex, evolving understandings of identity negotiation, power in communication, and English speaker legitimacy. The findings of this study reveal implications for EAP programs in universities, teacher education, and future theoretical directions in second language education.
Open Access
Celebration Of Authorship Program 2017-2018
(University of Regina Library, 2018) Anderson, Carl; Barber, Patrick Wayne; Archibald-Barber, Jesse Rae; Bowen, Gail; Brooks, Harrison; Bundock, Chris; Campbell, Anne; Conway, J F (John); Cote, Mark; Coupal, Chelsea; Cranston, Jerome; Elliot, Patricia; Helewa, Sami SJ; Hadjistavropoulos, Thomas; Kikulwe, Daniel; Koops, Sheena; Betterige, Robert; Coucill, Jim; Crowe, June; Dube, Mary-Anne; Duncan, Joyce; Helstrom, Cheri; Juby, Bob; Kellendonk, Alice; Leier, Kathryn; Lundahl, Bev; McDonald, Ian; Millard, Ivan; Mitchell, June; Nawrocki, Lucille; Paul, Linda; Quinn, Trevor; Shirkie, Bob; Stankewick, Kelly; Thurm, Shirely; Tirk, Ron; Tunison, Wayne; Tutt, Sherrie; Wells, Sarah; Whippler, Hazel; Whitaker, Christine; Wigmore, Morena; Wood, Gerri; McNinch, James; Meisner, Dwayne; Owl, Natalie; Atter, Heidi; Ellis, Brendan; Ermine, Annette; Giesbrecht, Lynne; Konkel, Alec; Lawlor, Alexa; Noyes, Jayda; Poplyansky, Michael; Sauchyn, David J.; Schubert, Josef; Sherbert, Gerry; Spooner, Mark; Stewart, Douglas; Wagner, Joan; Yoh, Abdoulaye
Open Access
The Cosmopolitan Traveler: Rendering Self and Coming Out Through A/R/Tographic Vlogging
(Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina, 2019-07) L, T A; Triggs, Valerie; Salm, Twyla; Mulholland, Valerie; McNinch, James
Learning about the self in relation to the world assists educators in making a positive impact in and out of the classroom. Learning to love the world, love the self, and love the relationship with the world is important and emphasizes a celebration of differences, in ourselves and those around us. The purpose of this a/r/tographic (artist/researcher/teacher) study, which is organized by Irwin’s conceptual renderings, is to develop a deeper understanding of how perspectives of the self may be altered by having experiences of solitude through extended solo travel and documented by video blogs. The study took place in Sydney and the North Coast of New South Wales, Australia over the course of four months, September 2017 to December 2017. Pinar’s theory of cosmopolitanism provides a theoretical lens through which to develop a deeper understanding of the self in relation to the world and the world in relation to the self. This study is guided by four research questions: How does extended solo travel and experience with solitude alter perspectives of the self as a global/cosmopolitan citizen? How does moving abroad shift my perspectives of my own sexuality? How does accepting the self alter my perspectives of my own religion/spirituality? How might learning about the self have an effect on my educational practice? Using a/r/tography as a means of perspective, collecting and analyzing data, this study seeks to gain a better understanding of the self as a cosmopolitan teacher/citizen. For this study, cosmopolitanism is understood to be an awareness that the world thrives in differences through multiple interconnected ways, among them: sexuality, spirituality, and sustainability. Using vlogs (video blogs) and THE COSMOPOLITAN TRAVELER ii weekly reflections as a means of collecting data, I was able to analyze the self and identify overarching themes between each role of the self as artist, researcher, and teacher. The findings are represented under six a/r/tographic renderings to help organize the data and reveal more about the self in relation to Pinar’s conception of a cosmopolitan educator. The analysis of the vlogs and reflections reveals that moving to Sydney, Australia prompted and sustained my research and enabled me to learn more about the self in relation to sexuality and spirituality. The data revealed overarching themes in past and current experiences including confidence, complexity, patience, and shame. Learning to love myself and be confident in who I am revealed progression in the cosmopolitan self. Removing and stepping outside the self and spending time in solitude reflecting on experiences helped me understand how to celebrate my own differences and idiosyncrasies, as well as those of people around me.
Open Access
Desire Lines: Treading Trails and Telling Tales of Lesbian Mothering
(Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina, 2016-03) Bailey, Elizabeth; Juschka, Darlene; McNinch, James; Marsh, Charity
This study highlights the ways in which the marginalization of lesbian families in Canada and the United States is perpetuated by heterobias and exacerbated by the legislation that continues to exclude non-hetero families. As demonstrated in this study, however, this marginalization is actively being countered as lesbian mothers disrupt the hegemonic notions of motherhood and family by seeking to make their voices heard and stories known in the public sphere. The focus on lesbian parented families in this thesis is important and timely in its engagement of the social debate that continues to surround the queer community as a whole. Data was collected online by accessing five publicly posted blogs authored by self-described lesbian mothers, with narrative inquiry and grounded theory used as methodological approaches. Reading the blogs with a queer feminist critical lens and using an intersectional framework studying the dynamics of queer(/)mother identities as they have been presented within the blogs, the primary questions I ask in this study are: how do lesbian women go about creating and maintaining personal and family identity despite the prevalence of heterobiased and homophobic attitudes that comprise their social context?; and, what stories are being told about their experiences in an online, blogged setting? The question of how opportunities for community building are introduced by sharing these stories online also emerged as I conducted this study. In considering the dearth of research that includes the voices of lesbian mothers as expressed through blogs (Hunter 2015), this study is important in its ability to capture, document and analyze existing and emerging counter-narratives. As a central theme, I offer the notion of blogging as activism, both in terms of the act of storytelling, and also where bloggers have challenged the hegemonic notions of lesbian/mother/family in the context of every day interactions with others. The rationale for blogging as described within the data fell under the themes of information sharing, support seeking and community building. In examining the blogs, themes emerged that described the experience of trying to conceive outside of a heteronormative context; the difficulties of living in a heterobiased culture; and strategies for resistance. Despite the fundamental challenges described in the blogs with regard to living and parenting on the margins of the dominant culture, this study demonstrates blogging as a form of rebellion in disrupting the silence/silencing of queer lives though the public offering of counter-narratives.
Open Access
Dissident Knowledge in Higher Education
(University of Regina Press, 2018) Battiste, Marie; Chomsky, Noam; Denzin, Norman K.; Fine, Michelle; Gill, Rosalind; Grande, Sandy; Hall, Budd L.; Lather, Patti; Leonardo, Zeus; Lincoln, Yvonne S.; McLaren, Peter; McNinch, James; Meyers, Christopher; Smith, Linda Tuhiwai; Spooner, Marc; Tuck, Eve; Weistheimer, Joel
I submitted this foreword to Marc Spooner and James McNinch on January 20, 2017, or “j20” to some, as President-Elect Trump was sworn in as the forty-fifth president of the United States amid nationwide protests. The world is in a state of crisis and the United States is no exception. If it is a leading nation of the world, it has not always earned that title for the right reasons. That is, many of the country’s citizens question whether the United States is leading the world in the wrong direction. With the election of Donald Trump, the United States finds itself in a maelstrom of debates, deep insecurities, and divisions it was by and large surprised by and for which it was unpre¬pared.
Open Access
How do High School Counsellors Perceive Their Role? It Can Start in the Parking Lot
(Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina, 2017-08) McGowan, Sharlene Gail; McNinch, James; Sasakamoose, JoLee; Halabuza, Donalda; Mulholland, Val; Steeves, Larry; Popadiuk, Natalee
This doctoral research was designed to acquire authentic data about the roles of practicing high school counsellors. Through a qualitative collective case study design, twelve practicing high school counsellors were interviewed about their perceptions of their role. Using open and axial coding, data were thematically reported and analyzed and were embedded in three conceptual frameworks: an interpretivist approach, elements of Durkheim’s structural functionalism, and principles of grounded theory. The results found that school counsellors perceived tension in ten of eleven thematic topics: advocacy practices, role ambiguity, the overwhelming demands placed upon them, their work as front-line mental health workers, parental communication, the unpredictability of their work day, collaborative practices, their support of school staff, involvement in crisis, and self-care. Counsellors did not perceive tension in supporting students for post-secondary or other academic assistance. Implications for future research were identified which may further reveal the work of high school counsellors, work that may be frequently clandestine to school stakeholders because of the confidential nature of the school counsellor’s role.
Open Access
Producing (White) Teachers: A Geneaology of Secondary Teacher Education in Regina
(Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina, 2012-12) Cappello, Michael Patrick; Schick, Carol; Tupper, Jennifer; McNinch, James; Goulet, Linda; Carter, Claire; Blachford, Dongyan; Dehli, Kari
Thinking about race in education, especially in the multicultural or even “postracial” context of 2012, is not an easy thing. A paradox exists: On the one hand, race is powerfully present in teachers, in teaching, and in school contexts; on the other, teachers, generally, are unable to think about their work and practices in the context of race. This dissertation explores this paradox by asking the following question: How does pre-service teacher education produce teachers as racialized subjects? This dissertation is informed by the Foucaultian methodology of genealogy and poststructural theories of subjectivity. Through genealogy, this work presents a cogent history of secondary teacher education in Regina, Saskatchewan, that is both critical and effective; critical, because it undermines the continuity forced onto teacher education through more traditional history, and effective, because it is focused on exploring the development of particular kinds of subjects. This genealogical analysis examines how White teacher subjectivity is produced through three modes: (a) how the White teacher subject is produced in racialized discourses, especially through notions of racelessness that erase racializing processes even as they are enacted; (b) how the White teacher subject is produced through technologies of power, especially the embedding of technical rationality as the core of teaching; and, (c) how the White teacher subject produces him/herself through techniques of the self, such as clinical supervision and self-reflection. While the analysis traces the production of dominant White subjects through teacher education, poststructural subjectivity allows at least the possibility that changing the discourses and practices might produce different subjectivities. Understanding what else is accomplished in the attempt to train teachers through these technical models is a necessary step in addressing the continuing dominance of White racial identities that schooling seems to perpetuate.
Open Access
The [Re]Construction of a Learner Self: A Phenomenological Study with Youth and Young Adults Postinvolvement in Criminal Behaviour
(Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina, 2012-03) Nelson, Rhonda LaVonne; Ryan, Heather; Kesten, Cyril; McNinch, James; Patenaude, Allan; Greenberg, Hirsch; Schonert-Reichl, Kimberly
This phenomenological research study had as its focus the concept of „self as learner‟ as an internal, complex process of self-discovery within human experience. It sought to illuminate, firstly, the meanings youth and young adults who had engaged in criminal behaviour and been unsuccessful in the K – 12 system had drawn from being part of the schooling experience and their perception of „self as a learner‟; and secondly, the meanings they had drawn from their current experiences of being learners after involvement in the development of a portfolio that represented in a concrete way their own personal knowledge, skills and attitudes. Transformative learning (Meziow, 1991) and the transtheoretical model of change (Prochaska, 2008) were complementary theoretical frameworks used to guide the study development. Congruent with the conception of how learning facilitates transformative change and the stages individuals go through within a change process as presented by the theories, each of the study participants had been faced with a disorienting dilemma surrounding an at risk lifestyle. Each demonstrated an openness to personal change by voluntary involvement in a community agency program utilizing the portfolio learning process involving self-evaluation, introspection, analysis, and synthesis concurrently with life skills programming. Through the reflective process that is part of the portfolio learning process, the participants [re]constructed their sense of themselves as learners through their personal meaning-making of their formal schooling experience and the evidence of their informal learning, in ways that support their positive engagement in ongoing learning. Five major distinctions in thematic content meanings emerged from the descriptions offered by the participants related to what it was like for them as a learner: 1. The school environment had a critical role in encouraging either success or failure. 2. The curricula, in its focus and scope, had a critical role in either maintaining exclusion through contextual disadvantage or facilitating social bonding and inclusion. 3. The personal relationships teachers either developed or avoided had a critical role in facilitating or derailing engagement with learning. 4. The substitution of peer influence for parental guidance and support had a critical role in introducing substance use and delinquent behaviours. 5. Emotion played a critical role in determining the extent to which factors either suppressed or encouraged the learner in learning. In addition, three fundamental findings concerning the broader context in which the lived experiences of the study participants emerged were identified as being congruent with the themes established in the literature review: (a) the role of systemic disadvantage in precluding learning of how society works; (b) the role of racism and prejudice in sustaining a perception of fear of youth who are perceived to not belong, even though those youth may themselves fear not belonging; (c) the role of learning environments that provide contextual and academic learning in lessening the effects of individual blame for lack of success as a learner.
Open Access
Recovered Accounts of Saskatchewan Adult Education: A Governance Moment
(Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina, 2012-10) Klyne, Richard; Bockarie, Abu; Clarke, Paul; McNinch, James; Horan, Hilary; Walter, Pierre
While a good deal is known about the history and governance structures within the Saskatchewan K-12 system, very little is known about the adult education and training sector. Faris (Cassidy & Faris, 1987) indicates that, given the magnitude and importance of the sector, the low status and remarkably little attention paid to the field of adult education is puzzling. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to understand and synthesize the lived-experiences of key decision-makers in order to make recommendations to improve the governance of the Saskatchewan adult education and training sector. Moreover, it is disturbing to find that the researcher’s understandings that emerged were inconsistent, disconnected, and fragmented - of both the history and the governance of the Saskatchewan adult education and training sector. The dissertation employed a direct phenomenological, sociological qualitative research approach. This approach is consistent with Hart’s (2008) Conceptual Research Framework, which utilizes five overlapping perspectives. The five perspectives employed to guide the decision-making processes are ontology, epistemology, theoretical perspective, mythology, and method. In addition to reviewing archival sources, government documents, and related materials from approximately 1944 to 2005, the researcher interviewed 13 of Saskatchewan’s top postsecondary decision-makers to elicit their lived-experiences and to provide recommendations on how to improve adult education and training governance. The findings generated contain six general themes concerning Saskatchewan adult education and training. These themes are discussed in Chapter 6, under the headings of K-12 Concerns, Understanding Complexity, Governance Selection Processes, Global Competition, Legislative Change, and Moral Governance. This study includes five recommendations to improve Saskatchewan adult education and training governance. The five recommendations include (a) clarifying board of governor membership, (b) increasing participant education and training, (c) reviewing Ministerial authority, (d) harmonizing the legislation, and (e) articulating a new vision for the postsecondary adult education system. These themes and recommendations may have implications for understanding the origins and governance of the adult education and training system in other jurisdictions. The study concludes with some suggestions for additional research.
Open Access
Straight Teachers' Perception of Queer Pedagogy: Saskatchewan High School Educators' Respond to Inclusive Pedagogy & Curriculum for Gender and Sexually Diverse Youth
(Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina, 2018-06) Olson, Mia Alexandra; Salm, Twyla; Schroeter, Sara; McNinch, James; Hadden, Corey
Institutionalized heteronormativity continues to be maintained in school settings, which impedes the learning environment for many youths. Research suggests many Canadian schools continue to perpetuate heteronormativity and contribute to the marginalization of gender and sexually diverse (GSD) youth, leading to lower graduation rates, mental health issues and even suicide. The purpose of this qualitative study is to develop a deeper understanding of how heterosexual, Saskatchewan teachers approach, understand and bring awareness to GSD inclusive pedagogy. Queer theory provides a theoretical lens to develop a deeper understanding of participants’ connections to school as a heterosexualized institution, and also to deconstruct heteronormativity. Using grounded theory methods of intensive interviews, this study seeks to understand how teachers navigate their role as allies and implementers of gender and sexually diverse pedagogy. Findings are represented in three themes. The analysis of the interviews reveal that 1) teachers often choose to silence discussion around GSD in fear of using culturally-offensive language, 2) teachers fear losing the cultural and social management of binary genders and sexualities, further perpetuating heteronormativity, and 3) teachers want more support through proper professional development and training. I conclude by explicating the need and desire for strategic practices that interrupt heteronormativity and the marginalization of GSD youth.
Open Access
“That’s the Life of a Gangster”: analyzing the media representations of Daniel Wolfe.
(Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina, 2012-08) Grebinski, Leisha Ann; Marsh, Charity; Robertson, Carmen; Rogers, Randal; Episkenew, Jo-Ann; McNinch, James
Daniel Wolfe has been represented by the news media as one of Saskatchewan and Manitoba’s most “notorious gang members.”1 Wolfe first made headlines at the age of 31 after he instigated a fatal home invasion in the rural community of Fort Qu’Appelle, northeast of Regina.2 Later that year, while on remand at the Regina jail, Wolfe and five other Aboriginal inmates staged an elaborate break-out which received extensive national media coverage.3 Two years later Wolfe was killed in prison. His death, although tragic, was regarded by media and experts as an “obvious conclusion” to a gangster’s story.4 Through an interdisciplinary approach consisting of interviews with key participants and a discourse analysis of print, radio, TV, and online new sources, I examine the media spectacle of Daniel Wolfe as a case study concerning the implications his story had on media representations of the Aboriginal gangster on the prairies. “That’s the Life of a Gangster”: Analyzing the Media Representation of Daniel Wolfe interrogates how Daniel Wolfe’s story is used by media, police, and politicians to perpetuate fear of Aboriginal men. I examine: 1) The role the media plays in the Aboriginal gangster is a current monolithic mis-representation of Canada’s Aboriginal peoples. For this thesis I take a three pronged approach: Firstly, I conduct an analysis into the media representations of Wolfe to examine the racialization of gang crime and the production of a moral panic. Secondly, I investigate how stereotypes of Aboriginal gang members such as Wolfe are reproduced and embodied by Aboriginal youth through an analysis of media represented links between Aboriginal bodies, hip-hop, and crime. Thirdly, I examine how agency and healing are being practiced through processes of storytelling by members of Wolfe’s family. The intent of this thesis is to contribute to and challenge the current conversation regarding the growing Aboriginal population and its perceived link with a so-called ‘growing Aboriginal gang problem’ on the prairies.
Open Access
Tradition and Discipline: The Evolution of the Caring Teacher Subjectivity in the Poiesis of the Saskatchewan Educational System
(Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina, 2016-09) Thomas, Theodore Edward; Brown, Douglas; Lewis, Patrick; Rogers, Randal; McNinch, James; Montgomery, Kenneth; Molnar, Timothy
This thesis began as an exploration in to the nature of teacher subjectivity and the ‘truths’ that make up our individual reality. It is the interplay of knowledge/power in the social that generates the discourses that shape the nature of the subjectivities we chose to perform as teachers. These discourses also shape the ‘truths’ that shape our present. To achieve this I have chosen to focus on the school inspectors’ reports to the Ministry of Education during the first twenty years of the Saskatchewan education system. In my analysis of these documents I utilize a Foucauldian lens coupled with Butler’s (2006) theory of performativity in an attempt to uncover subjectivities made available to teachers during this unstable, formative time. One such subjectivity made available was the ‘caring teacher.’ By 1916, 83 percent of the teachers in the province of Saskatchewan were women and the discourses that regulated the ‘proper’ expression of womanhood and the feminine in society were inevitably linked with this subjectivity and its performance. The effect of the migration of so many young women into teaching shaped the profession significantly. Nowhere was that more true than in Saskatchewan and the prairie provinces where this migration lead to a profusion of small one room school houses managed by one teacher, predominantly female, teaching the entire elementary curriculum. The First World War and the fight by women for the franchise would provide a destabilizing effect on these discourses, straining their previous morphology. However, the historicity of the ‘caring teacher’ was also built upon earlier attempts at social engineering utilized by the government of Great Britain. The concept of care was employed by middle-class women to discipline the working-class in Britain in order to inculcate middle-class values. This same social engineering was brought to bear through the educational system in Saskatchewan to bring together dissonant communities while simultaneously turning each little school into a center of calculation through which governmental intervention could influence the population. Foucault has referred to this as ‘conduct of conduct’ or governmentality. Moreover, the ‘caring teacher’ subjectivity became a powerful interface for the articulation of the discourses of race and class, emerging as it did during a period when the province was moving out of its settler/pioneering phase. This ‘dispositif’ of truths and practices built on what had come before; care, for the self and others marked the boundaries of middle-class white respectability within the colonial context. Accordingly, middle-class values became an integral part of the educational experience, held in place as they were by a cadre of female teachers, practicing care. These discourses, shaped as they were by war, white hegemony, and suffrage, reveal how the women of the province expressed the ‘truths’ that shaped their perceptions of their reality. These perceptions reveal an essence that is not always in-line with the absolute essence of the historical narrative. As Prado (2000) insists, Foucault’s (1926-84) analytical approach rejects this absolute essence; it is the “antithesis of [such] essences,” and is in direct contrast to these narratives (p. 62). As such, this thesis is an examination of the contested histories that are often covered up and overrun by these traditional accounts. In the post-modern era, however, care has been deevolved by accountability; middle-class values and white respectability have been displaced by corporate panopticism. What is the future of this subjectivity? Should teachers care for their students anymore, or should they adopt a more ‘business-like’ stance? It is only through a careful examination of the historicity of this subjectivity and a thorough problematizing of our present that we can rediscover this collective past.
Open Access
University of Regina Community Authors 2017-2018
(University of Regina Library, 2018) Cote, Mark; Barber, Patrick Wayne; Schubert, Josef; Stewart, Douglas; Bundock, Chris; Spooner, Mark; McNinch, James; Helewa, Sami SJ; Poplyansky, Michael; Yoh, Abdoulaye; Meisner, Dwayne; Sherbert, Gerry; Hadjistavropoulos, Thomas; Koops, Sheena; Coupal, Chelsea; Campbell, Anne; Wagner, Joan; Billan, Jennifer L.; Oleson, Eric J.; Owl, Natalie; Archibald-Barber, Jesse Rae; Conway, J F (John); Kikulwe, Daniel; Sauchyn, David J.; Anderson, Carl; Cranston, Jerome; Atter, Heidi; Brooks, Harrison; Ellis, Brendan; Ermine, Annette; Giesbrecht, Lynne; Konkel, Alec; Lawlor, Alexa; Noyes, Jayda; Bowen, Gail; Elliot, Patricia