Bryan Smith
York University, Education, Faculty Member
- Anti-Racism, Social Studies Education, Curriculum Studies, History of Education, Education, Cultural Studies, and 23 moreCritical Theory, Politics Of Education, Culture, Educational Technology, Educational Research, Critical Pedagogy, Postcolonial Studies, Sociology of Education, Multiculturalism, Philosophy of Education, History, Computer Science, Media Studies, Teacher Education, Gender, Cultural History, Indigenous Studies, Ethnic Studies, Critical Race Theory, Race and Racism, Identity politics, Native American Studies, and Critical Media Studiesedit
This article explores the implementation of what the Ontario Ministry of Education (OME) calls " social studies thinking concepts " in its current social studies, history, and geography curriculum. As a six-part framework largely... more
This article explores the implementation of what the Ontario Ministry of Education (OME) calls " social studies thinking concepts " in its current social studies, history, and geography curriculum. As a six-part framework largely influenced by historical thinking, I argue that the OME, in essence, creates a context wherein historical thinking, beyond simply influencing social studies thinking, comes to largely conflate with social studies thinking through what I call a curricular filter, a process of including incompatible or incongruous ideas through more amenable language. I suggest that this is incongruent with the OME's positioning of social studies as an integrated field and effectively denies social studies of its inherent interdisciplinary nature by privileging historically informed methods of inquiry.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The current generation of students live and learn within a pedagogical milieu saturated by digital technologies. Curriculum scholars have not ignored this, theorizing and critiquing the ways that technology both affords and limits... more
The current generation of students live and learn within a pedagogical milieu saturated by digital technologies. Curriculum scholars have not ignored this, theorizing and critiquing the ways that technology both affords and limits opportunities for students. Notably absent from this conversation, however, is a consideration of how the technologies themselves are designed and the implications that this design process has on the role and use of technology in our classroom spaces. In this article, I use the development of a decolonizing mobile application designed to teach students and educators about the history of residential schools in Canada, as an example, offering a nascent theorization of computer code. In particular, I argue that the exploration of computer code is an important avenue for critical scholarship. In so doing, I suggest that there are three important considerations—obfuscated representation, translation, and the engendering of technocracy—that need to be considered when doing curriculum work about/with computer technologies. While I do not argue that curriculum scholars need to become proficient in the programming languages central to the design of computer applications, I provide this exploration as a means of gesturing toward that which is often not considered but is central to the 21st century classroom.
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In this paper, we consider the (im)possibilities of thinking about a decolonizing citizenship. Specifically, we work through a theorization of citizenship and decolonial theory as a means of considering the difficulties of talking about... more
In this paper, we consider the (im)possibilities of thinking about a decolonizing citizenship. Specifically, we work through a theorization of citizenship and decolonial theory as a means of considering the difficulties of talking about citizenship, a concept tied to nation-statehood and European liberal tradition, amidst a larger conversation about attending to decolonizing educational praxis. In working through this, we argue that, ultimately, the two are largely incommensurate without rethinking what citizenship is taken up to mean, what its purpose is and largely what it entails including, primarily, pluriversality or the multiple conceptions of being and knowing that characterizes life in a shared context.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This research project explored the nexus between historical literacies, digital literacy and m-learning as a praxis of mobilizing technopolitics. To do this, we developed a mobile application for teacher candidates to study the absence of... more
This research project explored the nexus between historical literacies, digital literacy and m-learning as a praxis of mobilizing technopolitics. To do this, we developed a mobile application for teacher candidates to study the absence
of the Indian Residential School system as a complement to history textbooks and other curricular materials. Building on the findings of our SSHRC-funded digital history research project, we sought to engender a “technopolitics” as a form of critical historical literacy. Out of this work, we sought to understand how digital technologies contributed to recent calls to mobilize educational research and more specifically, while working to decolonize existing narratives of Canadian history beyond traditional modes of dissemination.
of the Indian Residential School system as a complement to history textbooks and other curricular materials. Building on the findings of our SSHRC-funded digital history research project, we sought to engender a “technopolitics” as a form of critical historical literacy. Out of this work, we sought to understand how digital technologies contributed to recent calls to mobilize educational research and more specifically, while working to decolonize existing narratives of Canadian history beyond traditional modes of dissemination.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
As a self-reflective method of inquiry, currere, and by extension autobiographical work, engage with the personal histories, aspirations and subjectivities of our students. Extensive academic work has gone into refocusing scholarly work... more
As a self-reflective method of inquiry, currere, and by extension autobiographical work, engage with the personal histories, aspirations and subjectivities of our students. Extensive academic work has gone into refocusing scholarly work to privilege the student and teacher experience in an attempt to foreground these histories and subjectivities. However, such work is subject to censure that problematizes this type of work’s utility as a method of eliciting more systemic understandings of the educative experience. In this paper, I explore the ways in which a seemingly opposed theoretical framework, critical pedagogy, might be able to offer some insights for a more attuned and structurally responsive personal reflection. Although critical pedagogy is not without fault, the cognizance of the structural and political context that it demands can help students and teachers develop insights into the ways in which the political, ideological and social world may structure our lives. Consequently, I argue that critical pedagogy (or, given the context, a different but equally critical paradigm) can help to texture autobiographical methods such as currere by invoking in students and teachers critical engagements with the contexts that shape(d) their lived experiences.
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Digital technologies have the potential to enable history teachers to engage student learning, meet diverse learning styles, present a diversity of perspectives, and foster historical inquiry. Pre-service teachers entering today’s... more
Digital technologies have the potential to enable history teachers to engage student learning, meet diverse learning styles, present a diversity of perspectives, and foster historical inquiry. Pre-service teachers entering today’s Canadian faculties of education are surrounded by more technology than their predecessors. But are they equipped with requisite knowledge and strategies to integrate these technologies effectively into their classrooms? This exploratory study uses a cross-sectional survey to investigate pre-service history teachers’ perceptions of their digital literacies. By doing so it provides a context for further research into the pedagogical impacts of integrating digital technologies into history classrooms.
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This article considers the idea of a curriculum of dominance in relation to the colonial logics that have, and continue to, shape the lived experiences and knowledges of both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal individuals living in Ontario,... more
This article considers the idea of a curriculum of dominance in relation to the colonial logics that have, and continue to, shape the lived experiences and knowledges of both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal individuals living in Ontario, Canada. In thinking about the present absence of certain Aboriginal narratives in relation to the ‘fort’ of Canadian history, the authors contemplate the ways in which the circumscribed logics of colonialism limit how we understand historical knowledge of Aboriginal groups not only as curriculum scholars but also as teachers and students who work in and have been educated in colonial public and Catholic schooling systems. Utilizing narrative assemblage as a research and writing methodology we partake in a dialectic wherein we confront the contours of colonial frontier logics. By braiding in our lived experiences, we seek to understand how curricular materials facilitate the silencing of certain Aboriginal narratives like residential schooling, the ways in which filmic representations can serve to re-write and redress lost memories, how one can learn from those who were subject to the violence of colonialism and how, as educators, we can address the violence and historical exclusion in our teacher education programs. Through this process, we suggest that although the continued discursive violence of colonial logics shape popular understandings of Aboriginal experiences in the Canadian nation-state, as socially justice orientated teachers we must continue to challenge the re-inscriptions of a curriculum of dominance within our future classrooms.
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Research Interests:
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""This article considers the idea of a curriculum of dominance in relation to the colonial logics that have, and continue to, shape the lived experiences and knowledges of both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal individuals living in Ontario,... more
""This article considers the idea of a curriculum of dominance in relation to the colonial logics that have, and continue to, shape the lived experiences and knowledges of both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal individuals living in Ontario, Canada. In thinking about the present absence of certain Aboriginal narratives in relation to the ‘fort’ of Canadian history, the authors contemplate the ways in which the circumscribed logics of colonialism limit how we understand historical knowledge of Aboriginal groups not only as curriculum scholars but also as teachers and students who work in and have been educated in colonial public and Catholic schooling systems. Utilizing narrative assemblage as a research and writing methodology we partake in a dialectic wherein we confront the contours of colonial frontier logics. By braiding in our lived experiences, we seek to understand how curricular materials facilitate the silencing of certain Aboriginal narratives like residential schooling, the ways in which filmic representations can serve to re-write and redress lost memories, how one can learn from those who were subject to the violence of colonialism and how, as educators, we can address the violence and historical exclusion in our teacher education programs. Through this process, we suggest that although the continued discursive violence of colonial logics shape popular understandings of Aboriginal experiences in the Canadian nation-state, as socially justice orientated teachers we must continue to challenge the re-inscriptions of a curriculum of dominance within our future classrooms.
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