Making Connections

The Editors: Kathleen Pithouse is a researcher for the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa. Her Ph.D. research focused on self-study in teacher education in South Africa. Her recent publications include a co-authored article on self-study and social action for the Journal of Educational Action Research.Claudia Mitchell is a James McGill Professor in the Faculty of Education, McGill University. She is co-author and co-editor of a number of books, including several that deal specifically with self-study, such as: Just Who Do We Think We Are? Methodologies for Autobiography and Self-Study in Teaching. Relebohile Moletsane is Research Director for the Gender and Development Unit of the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa. She is co-author of the book Methodologies for Mapping a Southern African Girlhood in the Age of Aids.

• Contents: Kathleen Pithouse/Claudia Mitchell/Relebohile Moletsane: Introduction – Claudia Mitchell/Kathleen Pithouse/Relebohile Moletsane: The Social Self in Self-Study: Author Conversations – Kathleen Pithouse/Claudia Mitchell/Relebohile Moletsane: Going Public With Scholarly Collaboration: Reflections on a Collaborative Self-Study Book Process – Kevin Barry O’Connor: Finding My Story and Place in Researching Indigenous Education: The Formation of a Narrative Identity – Mathabo Khau: Journeys Into the Hidden Self: Reflections on a Collaborative Inquiry Into Women Teachers’ Memories of Adolescent Sexuality – Marlene de Beer: Memory-Based Expressions of the Self: Demonstration/Expression of Identity Through the Art of Making – Joan Conolly/Snoeks Desmond/Simmi Dullay/Jerome Gumede/Erasmus Mnguni/Christina Ngaloshe/Martin Nxumalo/Theo Nyawose/Sarres Padayachee/Naretha Pretorius/Delysia Timm/Clementine Yeni: The Self as a Laboratory of Awareness: Exploring the Oralate-Literate Interface of Memory – Jackie Kirk: Starting With the Self: Reflexivity in Studying Women Teachers’ Lives in Development – Thelma Rosenberg: Finding My Way to Becoming a Researching Practitioner – Angeline Kunene: Learner-Centeredness in Practice: Reflections From a Curriculum Education Specialist – Teresa Strong-Wilson: ‘Seeing What I Mean’: The Student Teacher Portfolio as Object of Self-Study/Formation – Mohammad H. Tamdgidi: Rethinking Diversity Amid Pedagogical Flexibility: Fostering the Scholarships of Learning and Teaching of the Sociological Imagination – Naydene de Lange/Edwina Grossi: An Arts-Based Thesis: Reflections on the How and the Who and the Why of the ‘I’ – Valerie Mulholland/Sarah Longman: Reframing Autobiography in Teacher Education From a First Nations Perspective – Kriben Pillay: From Self-Study to Self-Inquiry: Fictional History and the Field of Discovery – Lungile Masinga: An African Teacher’s Journey to Self-Knowledge Through Teaching Sexuality Education – Liz Harrison: A Tinker’s Quest: Embarking on an Autoethnographic Journey in Learning ‘Doctoralness’ – Shawn Michael Bullock: Becoming a Teacher Educator: The Self as a Basis-For-Knowing – Lesley Wood: Teachers’ Self-Exploration of Gender Constructs: A Values-Based Approach to HIV Prevention – Julie R. Horwitz: Critical Reflection: Uncovering a Developmental Spiral.

«This volume opens up multiple dynamics of self-study for re-view and re-cognition. Contributors interrogate the self, collaboration, ethics, and learning in unfolding, dynamic, and interconnected ways. Readers will especially appreciate the different re-turns to self and social action that the volume offers.» (Nancy Lesko, Maxine Greene Professor, Teachers College, Columbia University)«‘Making Connections: Self-Study & Social Action’ is a ‘must-read’ for everyone who wonders about the value of self-study research to the important social and educational issues of our times. Through a series of engaging chapters representing a broad range of methods and contexts, the authors invite us to compare our situations and theirs, illustrating in the process how we are all connected and how valuable trans-national dialogue can be to our research. Individually and collectively, the chapters point toward the many implications self-study can have for social policy, political action, and educational reform. Self-study will never seem ‘merely personal’ again.» (Sandra Weber, Professor of Education, Concordia University, Montreal)