A Cyclical Journey: Student Teachers Navigate Social Justice Education
In this talk, we explore the lives of student teachers within a social justice-oriented teacher education program: how they navigate key moments of learning, discomfort, and transformation while developing pedagogies as student teachers. Situating this work within the interrelated scholarship of social-justice teacher education and culturally sustaining practices, we discuss how the experiences of student teachers are not just a precursor to becoming "real" teachers. Rather, this period is a critical phase in their growth, a time they can be immersed in the complexities and subtleties of being a student teacher. Findings from our research highlight a cyclical process of looking backward, inward, and forward. Student teachers reflect on their experiences, critically engage with their current positionalities, and envision their future practices and commitments as student teachers. We suggest this dynamic process is significant to their development as educators who are culturally responsive and socially just.
Presenter bios
Pooja Dharamshi (she/her) is an associate professor in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University. Her scholarship focuses on power dynamics and systemic inequities in teacher education. Grounded in critical literacies and culturally sustaining pedagogies, her work highlights the possibilities for community-engaged practices in advancing social justice and equity in K–12 and teacher education contexts. As a co-investigator on an SSHRC-funded international project, Pooja examines how teacher education programs resist neoliberal influences through transformative pedagogies.
Amrit Cojocaru is a PhD candidate in the eTap equity studies stream in the Faculty of Education and a program coordinator for the Friends of Simon Project. Before that, she was a limited-term lecturer and faculty associate at Simon Fraser University and a K–12 educator in the Surrey School District. Her doctoral research on students with forced displacement experiences in K–12 schooling systems focuses on equity and inclusion through teacher education and strength-centred pedagogies.
Shaghayegh Bahrami is a Vanier Scholar and PhD student in the ETaP program in the Faculty of Education. Currently a graduate student representative at the Canadian Association for Social Justice Education (CASJE), Shaghayegh also serves as the editor-in-chief of the SFU Educational Review. Their doctoral research lies at the intersection of mother-tongue-based learning and teacher education, focusing on the power of storytelling in creating counternarratives about languages and places.
Presenters
Pooja Dharamshi
Amrit Cojocaru
Shaghayegh Bahrami
Date/Time
Monday, October 28
Time: 12:30 - 1:30 p.m.
Place
SFU Burnaby Campus, EDUC 8515
Nikkei Latin American Japanese in Japan: Intergenerational language transmission and “Other” identity formation
Please join us for a presentation of a collaborative project among colleagues at Daito Bunka University (Japan), Chiba University (Japan), and the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University, funded in part by a Faculty of Education FIRE grant (Fund for International Research in Education).
Abstract
From the 1990s onwards, Japanese immigration policies encouraged the immigration of Nikkei Japanese Latin Americans (migrants from Japan and their descendants). Today in Japan, the Nikkei population is estimated at 250,000. While many Nikkei Japanese spoke little or no Japanese on arrival in Japan, their children (many now adults) are mostly born and educated in Japan. Within families, complex modes of communication that combine Portuguese, Spanish, and Japanese take place among the different generations in family, social, and educational contexts.
We present data from a two-year ethnographic study of the language practices and identities of 11 Nikkei Japanese participants with migration histories from Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Venezuela, and Bolivia, living in the Tokyo and Aichi regions of Japan. Data include plurilingual interviews, samples of reflective narrative writing, and samples of participants’ plurilingual digital communication. In our analysis, we look for answers to two questions: How and why do participants combine Portuguese, Spanish, and Japanese in their daily lives? How do participants’ plurilingual practices and perceptions/performances of identity relate to powerful sociocultural discourses about language use, ethnicity, and place?
We conclude by referring to and problematizing the concept of the ethnolinguistic “Other” as an analytic thread running through our work.
Presenters
- Mariko Himeta, Daito Bunka University, Japan
- Satoko Shao-Kobayashi, Chiba University, Japan
- Sara Arias Palacio, Simon Fraser University, Canada
- Pedro dos Santos, Simon Fraser University, Canada
- Steve Marshall, Simon Fraser University, Canada
Date/Time
Thursday, October 31
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Place
SFU Burnaby Campus, EDUC 7610
Transforming Trauma through Social Change: A Guide for Educators
Dr. Theresa Southam’s book Transforming Trauma through Social Change – A Guide for Educators travels the arc of trauma recovery. In this talk, we’ll learn that social change is the glue that holds trauma recovery together, leading to positive social change. Theresa will delve into how the five phases of transformative learning—life crises, disorienting dilemmas, critical reflection, dialogue, and taking action—can be brought to life in a course by involving students in social movements. Developed by Mezirow (1978) and applied in hundreds of educational settings, this learning process can transform traumatic histories into narratives of resilience and hope. The talk will end with excerpts from the five case studies in the book: stories of Sinixt Elder Virgil Seymour, environmental activist Briony Penn, immigrant student Gaganjeet Singh, the counter culturists of the Slocan Valley, and Lee Reid of Granny Gardening Tours.
Presenter bio:
As well as a master’s degree in intercultural communication from Royal Roads University (2010), Dr. Theresa Southam holds a PhD (2020) in human and organizational development. Her dissertation 27,000 Sunrises: Everyday Contributions of Grateful and Giving Age 70+ Adults, can be found here. Dr. Southam ran an environmental communications company before working full-time at Selkirk College, where she lived and worked in Indigenous communities coordinating certificates and diplomas. Today, she is head of the Teaching and Learning Centre at Selkirk College and continues her research as an ISI Fellow at Fielding Graduate University. She also recently published Transforming Trauma through Social Change: A Guide for Educators with Fielding University Press and is co-editor, with Marie Sonnet and Patrice Rosenthal, of the book Driving Social Innovation: How Unexpected Leadership is Transforming Society. Her blog post “Is Being an Ally Enough?” links to a longer piece on decolonization in the Journal of Anthropology and Aging.
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