A diffractive and decolonising reading methodology for education research

Abstract

For white settler researchers aiming to contribute to the work of decolonising education, actively seeking ways to disturb and destabilise long-held onto-epistemological assumptions associated with colonial modernity is important. In this article I investigate how these disturbances might occur in a diffractive and decolonising reading methodology. I outline two prior diffractive reading experiences that drew on decolonial theory and Barad’s diffraction theory: A situated inquiry of the Great Barrier Reef as a pedagogical agent; and a reading of Australian teacher education policy through military imaginaries. In this article I read these prior diffractive reading experiences through one another, attending to further methodological patterns. I identify two connected methods of defamiliarisation that are generative for destabilising colonising ways of knowing, norms and thinking in education. These are: Bringing ostensibly different phenomena together in diffractive relations with one another; and reading difference in the spirit of companionship, that is, in an orientation to learning from difference rather than to master difference. I suggest that if education continues to rely on and wield the same modern critical tools that support colonial-capitalist systems it will be unable to recognise, address and reimagine the continued violence of these systems.

Examining and Visualizing the Effects of Pedagogical Agents on Learning Outcomes

“…To effectively use these agents, teachers should carefully plan their integration into the lesson plans, aligning them with learning objectives and outcomes. Agents can be designed to simulate real-world scenarios, fostering active learning and critical thinking skills (Bellingham, 2022). Additionally, they can be used to support collaborative learning, encouraging students to work together and share ideas (Zou et al, 2024).…”

Towards an understanding of how school climate strikes work as public pedagogy

“…Diffractive readings are performative practices of paying attention to the effects of differences within entanglements (phenomena) and considering how these difference matter in the production of knowledge (Bozalek and Zembylas, 2017;Barad, 2007). They are at once a practice, a process and a result (Bozalek and Zembylas, 2017), a generative and relational (Bellingham, 2022) approach to exploring phenomena. In this inquiry, diffractive reading involves the "iterative (re)configuring of patterns of differentiating-entangling" (Barad, 2007, p. 168) to understand the phenomena of school climate strikes as more-than-human public pedagogies.…”