| Using a Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodology, directors of Free Humanities programs collaborated to research, act and reflect on the challenges and rewards of Clemente-inspired programs in Canada, which acknowledged a rupture from Earl Shorris’ Clemente Course in the Humanities but had yet to fully expound their similarities and differences. Identifying common critical issues they experience – from finding sustained funding to responding to academic and other pressing student needs, directors shared approximately one year of dialogue and reflections and presented collectively in a workshop panel at St. Thomas University’s International Liberal Arts Conference in Fredericton, New Brunswick, September 30 – October 2, 2010. While the programs acknowledge and to some degree lessen the economic and social barriers of their students, the programs themselves contend with many of these same barriers in the struggle to sustain free humanities courses.;As the directors continue to collaborate, we identify the core ethical concerns from within. This is a community researching itself and participating in an educational social movement. Creating Spaces for Dialogue is a participatory action research study into how and why we do what we do. It is an opportunity for learning collaboratively, reflecting on the links between theory and practice, and then communicating what we learn about the pedagogical and philosophical underpinnings of the Canadian programs. As educators, the spirituality of our practice comes through not only in what we teach but the way that we teach; it enters into the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ in the process of what we do. As conscientious educators, we have to be aware of our praxis and reflect on how our practice informs theory and vice versa because what we believe about people is manifested in and through our relationships, our dialogue. Intuitively and analytically, each program has been developing its own approaches to engaging participants in dialogue. This dissertation focuses on analysing an intuitive ethic of care that directors of Canadian Free Humanities programs have been infusing into their work. Findings include ways that directors of these programs are well positioned to extend their collaborative research from discourse to social action.;Key words: ethics of care, dialogical learning, Participatory Action Research (PAR), community development, adult education, critical pedagogy. . |
