Examining Teaching Activities in War-affected Schools: Advancing Transformative Praxis

Abstract

This dissertation study aimed to understand factors that mediated teacher activities in war-affected school settings. Specifically, this study focused on examining ways in which inequitable, exclusionary processes were perpetuated, maintained, and legitimized in a war-affected school situated in the Northern part of Sri Lanka. This study was conceptualized using multiple critical theories that elucidated the ways in which inequities and exclusions worked in complex activity systems. This participatory design-based research study engaged teachers and students in critical reflection activities. This study found the ways in which disposability and disjunctures shaped teachers and students participation in school. In addition, this study illuminated the ways in which subjectivities were co-constructed in unequal fields of power. This study also mapped learning processes that took place in relation to critical reflections and explained the ways in which these emergent knowledges signaled transformative praxis. The implications of this study asserted the necessity of politicizing ability and engaging in justice-oriented praxis.