SoTL under Stress: Rethinking Teaching and Learning Scholarship during a Global Pandemic

This essay considers how the current age of multiple crises is leading to changes in questions we ask of teaching and learning, questions we ask in SoTL, and the role of SoTL scholars

Examining Attention to Leadership When Hiring School Administrators in a High Poverty, Ethnically Diverse School District: A Case Study

The purpose of this mixed methods case study was to understand the hiring practices of a school district when considering a principal and how the school district attends to leadership within those hiring practices. The central premise of the study was leadership matters and is second to teaching in student achievement. However, the historical record paints a picture of less than adequate attention to effective hiring practices and a limited scope when addressing leadership. A small school district in California was selected to participate in the study. The design incorporated mixed methods to analyze the hiring practices through a survey of site administrators (principals and assistant principals), interviews of the Superintendent, and interviews of two principals. Similar to what was found in the review of literature, the school district did not align all of the hiring practices to what they valued in leadership and lacked in performance-based instruments when hiring. However, the results of the study indicated how the school district valued leadership and this may have been a contributing factor in student achievement. Through the review of literature and the study, the researcher developed an understanding of the complexity of the leadership construct and provides a synthesis of how key leadership studies fit together to provide a framework for hiring school administrators

A Deleuzian reimagining of art and the ecovillage

Reimagining Art and the Ecovillage develops an expanded understanding of art and the way it functions in the ecovillage within the broader context of the environmental, sustainability movement. Although art plays a vital role, there is little extant research in this field, a shortcoming that this thesis addresses. My overarching question asks whether the ecovillage can be reimagined as a work of art, not in terms of what a work of art is but, drawing on the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari, what is enabled by an expanded conception of art. I use a qualitative mixed method design to generate data from semi-structured interviews, art workshops, photography, observation, reflection, and journaling. These are gathered from three Australian ecovillages, Aldinga Arts Ecovillage in South Australia, Billen Cliffs in New South Wales and Crystal Waters in Queensland. The methodological challenge for this project is how to bring together the apparent disparate paradigms of social science research, which inevitably generates static representations, and the open-ended performativity of the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari. The thesis begins from the position that Deleuze’s work encourages creative solutions to this problem, offering a dynamic approach to reading the data. Chapters Two, Three and Four examine the ways in which art embeds itself in the social structures, physical spaces and the subjectivities of the ecovillage dwellers. I argue that these structures, spaces and subjectivities work together to produce all of life as a form of art. Chapter Five undertakes a critique of excessive consumption as it links with capitalism, showing how the ecovillage movement stands apart from capitalist tendencies in the way that it engages with art. Finally, in Chapter Six, I explore artworks that I co-produced with the ecovillage dwellers to arrive at the conclusion that while there is always a role for a trained artist to exist in any community, conceiving of and thus reimagining the ecovillage as art, means that the transformative potential of art is available to all as a life practice

Toward a Minor Tech: A Peer-reviewed Newspaper, Volume 12, Issue 1, 2023

Following a process of open exchanges and a three-day research workshop in London, at London South Bank University and King’s College, London, the publication brings together researchers who address the problems of technological scale, thinking through the potentials of ‘the minor’; or what we are referring to as minor (or minority) tech. As such, the publication sets out to question the universal ideals of technology and its problems of scale, extending it to follow the three main characteristics identified in Deleuze and Guattari’s essay (Toward a Minor Literature), namely deterritorialization, political immediacy, and collective value.  Contributions by Christian Ulrik Andersen, Geoff Cox, Camille Crichlow, Mateus Domingos, Feminist Servers (mara karagianni & nate wessalowski), Teodora Sinziana Fartan, Susanne Förster, Inte Gloerich, Daniel Chávez Heras, Macon Holt, Jung-Ah Kim, Edoardo Lomi, Inga Luchs, Gabriel Menotti, Alasdair Milne, Anna Mladentseva, Shusha Niederberger, Søren Bro Pold, Roel Roscam Abbing, Winnie Soon, Magdalena Tyżlik-Carver, Varia, Jack Wilson, xenodata co-operative (Yasemin Keskintepe & Alexandra Anikina), Sandy Di Yu, Freja Kir. Design & Production: Manetta Berends and Simon Browne (Varia)

Höpfl and Hanh’s metaphorical mediation of intercorporeal ethicality

We identify one of Höpfl’s key contributions; her metaphorical mediation of intercorporeal ethicality. Höpfl uses metaphor to communicate an ethics that is not based on cognitive, calculative and theorising rationality but is a state of being ethical that proceeds from the heart and a recognition of interconnected bodies. We direct the research question that emerges from Höpfl’s work towards that of Thich Nhat Hanh, an Engaged Buddhist leader: how does his metaphorical discourse communicate the relationship between mindfulness and intercorporeal ethicality? Our analysis reveals how Hanh employs metaphors to mediate how mindfulness provides insight to our physical interdependence and thereby promotes mutual care: realising our indivisible unity, we care for each other. Key contributions are new theories of embodied ethicality (an ethics based on interconnected bodies) and embodying metaphor (metaphors that communicate the unity, interconnectedness and interdependence of bodies that care for one other)

Principals’ Perceptions of the Barriers and Impediments to Distribute Leadership and Share Decision Making Under an Era of Heightened Accountability: An Exploratory Study Using Q-Technique

Educational institutions—and, more specifically, principals—are faced with meeting the mandates and demands set forth by local, state, and federal initiatives. Accountability has forever changed the context in which the traditional role of a principal leads. This study examines the beliefs, attitudes, and Educational institutions—and, more specifically, principals—are faced with meeting the mandates and demands set forth by local, state, and federal initiatives. Accountability has forever changed the context in which the traditional role of a principal leads. This study examines the beliefs, attitudes, and opinions of public high school principals on distributed leadership within a context of accountability. In addition, it investigates their trust levels. The study of subjectivity can be employed utilizing a systematic mixed-methods approach called Q technique. This methodology has the power to reveal the shared viewpoints or intersubjectivity and models held by public high school principals. Data were analyzed from 28 suburban New York public high school principals located in Nassau, Suffolk, Rockland, or Westchester counties concerning their beliefs regarding the potential barriers and impediments in distributing leadership responsibilities within the context of heightened accountability. In addition, it assessed their trust levels as these levels related to distributing their leadership. This study identified and examined 3 models of shared viewpoints held by public high school principals. Background characteristics were utilized to describe the clusters of participating principals. These characteristics consisted of: years of experience as a public-school administrator, years of prior experience as a teacher, highest level of education, and decade graduated from high school. Information was also gathered regarding principals’ beliefs in the effectiveness of distributed leadership. The 3 Q models revealed, consensus and disagreement. To identify and understand where changes in leadership must be made, it is necessary to research school leadership from an alternative perspective by understanding the intersubjectivity of high school principals