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Working with, Against and Despite Global ‘Best Practices’: Educational Conversations Around the Globe
In the unfolding 21st century, there is an expansion and intensification of transnational educational interactions and initiatives across the globe. Increasingly educational actors—as school teachers, teacher educators, researchers, development specialists, and community organizers—are working in transcultural contexts (in interconnected locations) in Canada and around the globe. In this context, we are increasingly confronting idealizations of “best practices” that are travelling across political borders, especially from the ‘west’ to the ‘east’ and to the ‘south,’ in an uneven world. Educational transfer has been central to comparative, international, and development education for more than a century, but as of late the intensifying transnational rhetoric of ‘best practice’ requires much scrutiny as both danger and opportunity. What is the character of these so-called (western) best practices and what are their conceptual underpinnings and routes of assemblage? Which ‘best practices’ are travelling, how and to which ‘local’ educational domains? How are they interpreted and engaged in local contexts and what are their effects? And ultimately, how are progressive and critically-minded educators to work with, against and despite global ‘best practices?’
This forum will be one of the unique opportunities for Canadian education scholars, practitioners, and graduate students to critically and collectively engage with these questions. This one-day symposium is expected to be a place for exchange of ideas, as well as developing theoretical insights and practical strategies to more proactively engage in our respective trans-national/cultural contexts across the levels of policy, pedagogy and research.
To register: email cidec.oise@utoronto.ca to reserve & pay by cash/cheque at event
Click here for program and schedule.