ILISKO, DZ & IGNATJEVA, S LATVIA, DAUGAVPILS UNIVERSITY DECONSTRUCTING BIASED METAPHORS ABOUT “THE OTHER” AS FOUND AMONG THE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Transformative Power of a Metaphor Metaphoric thinking is ‘an open ended, interactive, complex process that enables students to make empathic and imaginative associations between dissimilar concepts and to interpret one element in multiple ways’ James (2002)

Metaphors Reflect our understanding about ourselves and the world around us; Enable students to put thoughts and feelings into symbolic form (Feinstein, 1996); Enable the researcher to see beyond their existing conceptual frameworks and understandings; Provide a cognitive framework that directs one’s understanding about a social reality; Metaphors have a power to deconstruct and reframe old ways of seeing oneself and the world, thus unveiling unjust power structures and dichotomies

Dangers of the use of metaphors as encountered: Images may remain quite superficial and lacking analytical rigor; Metaphors may not provide a bases for reliable inquiry; Metaphors can be ambiguous and vague; Still: Metaphors have positive transformative power in generating new meaning and providing new perspectives in perception one’s place and relatedness towards the other and the Earth.

Methodology of the study: The article is based on a qualitative research methodology and the authors use participative action research (PAR) to engage students in a deconstructive dialogue of their assumptions and frames of reference how they view the world with the aim to build a more expanded and ecological sense to self and more expanded relationships with "the other" in a multicultural society. The authors expose the dominant assumptions towards the understanding of ‘the other’ which are grounded in binary and dualistic thinking in rational and structural explanations of students' reality. The authors suggest a rationale for developing an ecologically proper conduct towards ‘the different other.’

PAR Was aimed at generating novice teachers’ practical knowledge, leading to personal and societal change; To provide space for a dialogue, sharing of students’ personal experience, in rethinking their frameworks in the light of other frameworks; PAR was carried out within the framework of the course ‘Education for sustainable and cultural changes’ designed for the 1 st year Master program students. The number of students in the group is N = 23 students, 21 female and 2 male students. All of them had a previous teaching experience. The aim of the PAR (participatory action research) was to develop novice teachers metaphoric imaginations by engaging them in developing a framework for understanding how their experiences are historically, politically and socially grounded, as well as to improve teachers’ critical thinking skills through active participation and group discussions, thus revealing dominant unsustainable assumptions about oneself, the other and one’s place in the world.

Research findings The aim of the PAR was to study: 1) How did students’ biases towards the different other change during the course? 2) What kind of metaphors did they use to describe their understanding and the attitude of the Other and Oneself?; 3) How did they move from the stages of denial, minimization, acceptance, acceptance, adaptation towards integration (Bennett, 1993).

Bias and positioning in students’ discourses: analysis of students’ essays Essays served a tool to reflect multiple positioning of students’ selves and reflect their epistemological orientations; The intersectionality of biases in students’ lives and how relations of power are produced and transformed through this interaction in students’ lived experiences; A deconstruction of binaries and normalizations, as well as to offer a platform to address the concerns of students via formulation of metaphors.

Bias and positioning in students’ discourses: analysis of students’ essays Marginalizing discourses: Result - oriented learning process; Gender - marginalizing discourse (Gender socializations in a certain way); Classed expectations (Availability of extra educational services for wealthier pupils); Exclusion of socially disadvantaged students. Researved attitude to some cultural groups (Reserved attitude followed by some culturally embedded stereotypes and biases); Not efficient school’s infrastructure, incompetency of a teacher to deal with impairments (lack of methodological training of teachers) towards children with physical and mental impairments);

Bias and positioning in students’ discourses: analysis of students’ essays The other as “a stranger”, the other as “a friend”; the other as “an enemy”, the other as “an alien”, as “an outsider” The most pronounced in students’ essays was exclusive attitude towards the other as a stranger (competiveness, alienation in all levels, marginalization, exclusion, undemocratic power structures, intolerant attitude, life in a multicultural classroom setting and school’s educational environment). In their essays the students have pointed out to the reality of excluding some groups from the social processes, and saw a link with the exclusives experiences at school.

Bias and positioning in students’ discourses: analysis of students’ essays Metaphors the students have located one ‘self’ are the following: ‘Self – centered’, ‘egoistic self’ -‘ expanded self’, ‘spiritual self’, ‘all powerful self’, and ‘ecological self. In PAR, by developing one’s wider, deeper and richer sense of Self through dialogical interaction with other students, the students were engaged in the process of personal transformations. As Wang (2005) asserts, being locked in one’s egoistic self, causes one to loose ones capacity for creative imagination. In a process of critical reflection students were moved towards decentering and marginalizing, leading towards an awareness of the other in opposite direction. By dwelling into a space of ambiguity and uncertainty, PAR had a power to encouraging transformations on personal and societal level.

Pedagogical suggestions for overcoming biased understandings The process of liberative teaching encompasses the following aspects: 1) the students become conscious of their needs, concerns, bias, and the experience of others; 2) discerning the meaning of different perspectives, revealing oppressive societal structures; 3) defining multiple strategies of action in a response to multiple factors of oppression. Moore (1998) suggests: beginning with a politics of suspicion, moving towards politics of grace, politics of future and a politics of solidarity

Conclusions The metaphors used and constructed by the novice teachers can help them to construct new and more expanded understanding of oneself, of ‘the other’ and one’s place in the world. As a result of PAR, the students showed an increase of deeper self - awareness of one’s place in the world and the different other. The course encouraged students to think critically about one’s place in the world by providing the time and space to discuss topics. Action research becomes a valuable tool to involve novice teachers to become researchers in a reconceptualization of dominant metaphors that becomes a liberating pedagogy in Latvia. The process of deconstruction of dominant metaphors towards the other, and a dominant power structures and inequality, is a significant attempt of creating empowering and liberating classrooms and to critically literate students. The schools need to make a shift from their paradigms of equality to an awareness of power and inequality. Involvement of students in deconstruction of their privileged locations towards the other and towards the Nature allows stimulating empowering or liberatory classrooms.

Conclusions Pedagogical challenge is to help students to become aware of their biases, stereotypes, prejudices, as well as exploring their cultural preconceptions through careful and truthful reflective self - analyses in order to be able constructively interpret their views. Schools need to equip new generation to abide in a creative, tension filled relationships between identity and difference, continuity and change, memory and hope, or what Mary Boys call ‘education for paradox’ (1989). As Derrida asserts, multicultural education itself has a paradoxical nature, both, unity and multiplicity, tradition and difference, self and the other. PAR encourages creative pedagogy which welcomes the paradox and a metaphor, thus allowing one to imagine a more sustainable multicultural society and becomes a tool for fostering a shift from the defense position of oneself to an expanded sense of Self in relation to the Others and the World. PAR serves as a tool for developing students’ intrinsic capacity to transform their consciousness and to overcome barriers of traditional ideologies. Ultimately, empowered students will are able to view oneself and ‘the Other’ differently, become accountable and reflexive on their values.