New Materialisms is the ‘theoretical framing’ I’m using for my bicycle-centered PhD. Being the co-convenor of Griffith’s New Materialisms (NM) Special Interest Group (SIG) has helped me get a better handle on this tricky and exciting work and think more deeply about how it relates to different educational contexts.
For this month’s NM SIG we are very excited to have Catherine Thiele and Dr. Stephen Heimans as our guest presenters.
Attuning to/in School Data (Wall) Events
In this session, we discuss the process of coming to do research about the use of data walls in schools. We detail the critical qualitative/ post qualitative shifts towards being-with teachers in the affective intensities of data wall research encounters. We detail the theory-methods enacted in attuning to/ in the ‘data-affect-events’ that problematise school-data and research-data practices. This immanently evolving research inquiry destabilises both the critique and valorisation of teachers’ data (wall) practices. In the emerging affective intensities, relational knots and vibrant mattering of data-affect-events, a fielding of attention ‘par le milieu’ of generative (re)emergence arises. Amidst school and scholarly datascapes, the (un)certain affective capacities of data-affect-events are minor (re)beginnings to the flow of thought and being. In these a ‘more-than-metricised’ emerges, thought entangles the ‘nexts’ in the intensities of post critique and post (qualitative) inquiry.
Presenters
Catherine Thiele is an educator, lecturer, researcher and the Professional Experience Coordinator for the School of Education. Since beginning her career over 20 years ago, Catherine has taught in primary schools and tertiary institutions. Through her various academic roles and research interests, Catherine contributes to deeper understandings about the affective experiences of standardized data interactions, preservice teacher preparation (particularly for rural and remote education) and mathematics education. Catherine is currently undertaking her PhD “The affects of effects: S(h)ifting conversations around standardized data”.
Stephen Heimans is a Senior Lecturer in The School of Education at The University of Queensland. He writes and teaches about education policy/ leadership enactment, education research methodology and schooling in underserved communities. He is interested in the post-critical possibilities of Jacques Rancière’s thinking and the philosophy of science of Isabelle Stengers – especially experimental constructivism.
As part of this meeting, we will be discussing: How can we better attune to affect and relationality as educator-researchers?
Session overview
This project puts to work affect theories in practice – in classrooms and schools. I really like these kinds of sessions because they are working at the pointy end of applying theory and ideas into the ‘real world’. There is much to learn from what is enacted, applied and implemented – and what is more conceptual. As a teacher, I was particularly keen for this session as it directly speaks to my professional experiences.
It turned out our presenters were double booked, so we appreciated that they still made time to come to the session and present key ideas (while in the next room another meeting waited for them!).
The discussion that followed the presentation was also enlightening. It was great to hear the non-teaching SIG members talk about what popped out for them and how they might make links to their own research projects that are often so vastly different from high school contexts. Super interesting!
Here’s a 100-word worlding I wrote as a session summary:
Attuning in/to data walls.
I invite two researchers whose conference session I attended to present at our SIG. The topic is ‘attuning in/to data wall events’. Its a small group, but discussion is robust. We unpack the differences (and challenges) between ontological anchors and ontological signposts. Tenticular conversations bloom. The ‘ideological push’ and the in(cap)ability of school (re)research(ers). Datascapes and translator guides. The ethics of making school-our-other data and research public. Destructive emotions and flattening intensities. The role of time, colour and ‘them’ – and how the data always/never lies. Problematising youth, power and publicness is messy and confusing.
Session Reading: For something different, we have The ICQI 2021 Program (see attached) as our stimulus. Have a look through to see what catches your eye and what session you would like to find out more about!