Rita M. Bouchard, in fulfilling the requirements for Antioch University’s EdD program in Educational and Professional Practice, has written and published a dissertation titled, Teaching Towards Connection and Love for Place through a Kinship/Indigenous Worldview: A Critical Pedagogy of Place.
Bouchard’s hermeneutic phenomenological study observed the lived experiences of children through a Kinship/Indigenous worldview. The study is based on a theoretical framework at the nexus of critical theory, place-based education, and Kinship/Indigenous studies.
For this research, elementary students and their teacher explored one square block of the school community, illuminating different aspects of place daily through Kinship/Indigenous worldview precepts. Students constructed their knowledge of place from unseen organisms to power systems and developed an understanding of their impact on place. Bouchard gathered data, including Natureculture journal notes, sketches, reflections, photovoice, and semi-structured interviews. She isolated, analyzed, and interpreted data to illuminate themes and give voice to the lived experience of children learning about a place.
Bouchard’s scholarship centers on critical theory, place-based pedagogy, and an original kinship-Indigenous worldview. As a scholar-practitioner, she strives to incorporate research into her community-based practice.
Read Bouchard’s dissertation, Teaching Towards Connection and Love for Place through a Kinship/Indigenous Worldview: A Critical Pedagogy of Place, here.
