OISE Courses
This course begins where Part I leaves off. Learners will deepen their knowledge of a wide variety of qualitative research methodologies. They will gain skills interviewing, judging research, exploring dilemmas, and becoming critically aware as researchers. Their primary activity will be carrying out and completing the research project designed and approved in Part I. Giving and getting help from other classmates is an integral part of the process. Additional methodologies explored in this course include: action research, critical discourse analysis, and Freirian-based research.
This course examines the application of small group theory and leadership models to team development within organizational settings. It addresses such issues as power and difference among members, equity in leadership, peer performance assessment, multi-rater feedback and team process consultation. It provides an opportunity to examine, both theoretically and experientially, the development of a team as it forms, confronts interpersonal and group conflict, and evolves from dependence on the team leader to interdependence and shared leadership among team members. This course is particularly relevant to current workplace designs, where matrix models, cross-functional team arrangements and ad hoc project teams dominate new organizational forms. The course is held on seven alternate weeks for a full day each session, in order to permit both conceptual exploration and the application of theory to actual team development.
This course is focussed on theoretical research on the concept of adult learning. The course will operate on the basis of high student participation. Students are expected to incorporate aspects of their own experiences and/or research interests with course studies. From the vantage point of Adult Education, topic areas included in the course are as follows: the social importance of studying adult learning dynamics; history of conceptualizing adult learning; contemporary trends in studies of adult learning; agency, autonomy and the individual in adult learning research; socio-cultural theories of adult learning; the relationship of adult learning and social change; and, methods and methodologies in the study of adult learning.
This is a Social Movement course. This course will be of interest to a wide range of practitioners, including: activists, popular educators, and counsellors. The context in which it is offered is a world increasingly populated by disenfranchised people. The intent is to help practitioners gain a fuller understanding of the populations in question and become more skilled and creative as allies and activists. The specific populations focused on are: psychiatric survivors, people who are homeless, people who have been imprisoned, people who use illicit drugs, undocumented people, and sex trade workers. Learners will gain knowledge of the ABC's of strategic activism, with particular emphasis on how to modify strategy to fit the populations and movements in question. An accompanying emphasis is use of the arts in resistance work with these populations. Examples of art forms drawn on include: theatre (including theatre of the oppressed), puppetry, and video-making. Popular education is integrated. Perspectives include: feminism, anti-racism, Marxism, transformative justice, antipsychiatry, labeling theory, anarchism, and the philosophies of nonviolent resistance. The classes go between lectures, student presentations, film and video analysis, rehearsals, consultations, exercises, and guest presentations. Activism within the larger community is an integral part of the course.
A theoretical and experiential study of strategies for teaching adults, and of the procedures educators can use in group settings to enhance the development of learning processes. Students will explore personal institutional and societal variables that shape teaching/Learning environments, examine the factors that promote or hinder success, experience and analyze different teaching approaches, and develop a personal approach to the teaching/learning process.
This course explores the nature(s) of trauma and the different ways of working with survivors. The emphasis is on difference-different types of trauma, different ways of coping, and the significance of different and multiple identities. Work with adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse is particularly highlighted. Other areas include survivors of: homophobic assault, ritual abuse, residential schools, refugee traumatization, war trauma, trauma associated with imprisonment, trauma associated with psychiatric intervention, and second generation trauma (e.g., children of Holocaust survivors). The trauma inherent in systemic oppressions, the fact that we live in an oppressive and violent society, and the implications for practitioners is emphasized throughout. While the primary emphasis is on practitioners as counsellors, other roles are also considered, including: advocates, befrienders, community workers, and literacy workers. Practitioner self-care in light of vicarious traumatization is given special consideration. Attention is divided between individual work, group work, and community work. The course is counter-hegemonic. Dominant perspectives include: critical theory, feminism, and existentialism. Permission of Instructor is required to enrol. Failure to contact the instructor for a screening interview well in advance (at bonnie.burstow@utoronto.ca) may result in not being able to take the course.
This course will focus on gender processes in work settings. We will identify patriarchal rules and expectations which run through contemporary workplaces (factories, offices, homes, hospitals, shopfloors, etc.) and propose ways in which normalizing discourses which reify gender hierarchies can be challenged. The course will focus on how ''gender,'' ''race'' and ''class'' can be conceptualized as processes rather than demographic attributes possessed by individual workers. We will trace the connections between gendered jobs and gendered workers and explore how individuals learn to ''do gender'' in organizational settings.
While our economic GDP is growing today via enclosure and destruction of the Commons, our human wellbeing and sustainability increasingly depend not only upon protection of the Commons (economic, ecological, cultural and electronic) but their extension in most areas of human experience. With the participation of all faculty members of the AECD Program, the course will be based on introducing students to the following: i) a history of Commons in societies; ii) conceptualization of Commons; iii) relevance of Commons for understanding adult education in relation to a variety of learning contexts and social issues. In this context, the course will specifically seek to explore the following dynamics of change: a) the current impact of ‘counter-commons’ market measures of wealth, well-being and ‘development’; b) current commons- related education, policy and activism in economic, social, cultural and spiritual realms at the local, national and global levels; and c) theoretical and strategic debates among commoners and between commoners and corporate ‘sharing economy.’
This course focuses on learning for the global economy. We will explore workers' learning which occurs during migration and as a result of the movements of global capital. In order to support the growing interconnectedness between workplaces located in different countries, organizations and states have developed strategies and programs which serve to "train" workers to engage in transnational interactions. Workers engage in a wide range of language, communication, and vocational training as a result of migration as well as through their involvement in global economic processes. We will explore what and how workers learn to conceptualize the "world as a single social space" (Robertson 2002) and the impact of this learning on their lives and communities.
Peter Senge's concept of the Learning Organization has now been embedded in organizational thinking since 1990. Many organizations have struggled to create learning cultures with varying degrees of success and much has been discovered about the factors that contribute to or inhibit this success. In this course, we will look at the Learning Organization as Senge and others have conceived it through the lens of productive conversation. The course will employ a variety of learning strategies including student presentations, theory bursts and organizational simulation. As part of our process, we will examine our own ability to create a learning organization within the class and the impact that our conversations have on the quality of our own learning.
This course provides an opportunity for students to put theoretical ideas they have learned in other courses into practice. Students will identify a placement setting and develop a project in consultation with the instructor. The practicum can be situated within such settings as schools, private sector organizations, community groups, hospitals. Suitable projects may include (but are not limited to) the development of curriculum, programs or online resources, the organization and/or delivery of courses and workshops, and the evaluation of teaching materials and programs. Weekly discussions will provide for support, feedback and reflection.
This course focuses on the experiences of a generation of young adults who have come of age under the auspices of fiscal crisis, austerity and massive shifts in social policies landscapes, and recent upheavals and mobilizations against the state across North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Young adults today are uniquely positioned within the cultural, economic, and policy landscapes of growing conditions of social and material insecurity. Compared to adolescence, which is a much-researched area of educational scholarship, young people who are "emerging" or "young" adults are an under-researched population. Emerging adulthood includes the period between 18 and 30 years of age when young people become more independent and explore various life possibilities. It is a time of profound change, when young adults acquire the skills and education they need for jobs and careers, when they establish households and relationships, begin families, and begin to contribute to society in meaningful ways. It is also a time in which young people gain political status vis-a-vis the state and become subject to rules and regulations concerning criminal justice and financial institutions and can experience an attenuating loss of social supports. There is a growing body of research to suggest that that the forms of 'crisis' experienced by young people today will have a profound effect on their transition to adulthood, their engagement in traditional social and political institutions, and their ability to participate meaningfully in the knowledge economy. For these reasons, emerging adulthood and youth studies are important areas of study in adult education.
This course will provide students with little background in feminism and students wishing to renew and deepen their knowledge of feminism with an overview of: 1) the principles of feminist social analyses and social practice, and 2) feminist perspectives on current issues. It will be useful for students who are facing issues of gender in their research, their work, or their personal lives and are interested in how gender intersects with race, class and sexuality.
This course presents a hands-on approach to community organizing on lgbtq issues, and is meant to supplement the skill base of those currently working in communities as health and social services professionals, as well as those who are grass roots community organizers. The curriculum is designed to engage lgbtq history and contemporary issues, and to integrate this knowledge with a skill-building approach to community development through organizing and participatory action.
This course examines the theory and practice of conducting participatory and collaborative research that bridges the academic, workplace, and community divide, with an emphasis on research from feminist, anti-racist, and anti-colonial perspectives. In addition to readings, students will undertake a research project as part of the course requirement.
This course will focus on the impact of war on women and their rights. We will engage in critical analyses of contemporary conflicts and their impact on gender, race and learning. Specifically, we will examine the link between war, globalization, nation-states and learning and the link between non-state, non-market forces and learning. We will look at current feminist approaches to the study of war, violence and women's resistance and learning. The theoretical approach in this course is anti-racist and anti-imperialist feminism.
This course will focus on the gender, race, and class dimensions of population movement and forced migration. The focal point of the course will be the understanding of work-related experiences of migrant and refugee women. Reading theories of migration in the context of circulation, distribution, and appropriation of capital, we explore the flow of migration and labour market in Canada and globally. Two forms of movements will be explored: movements of people and movements of jobs. The adjustment and transformation of market economy in response to these movements will be studied. Emphasis will be on the challenges forced by women migrants and refugees as they navigate changing labour markets in search of waged work.
This course explores theories and practices of democratizing work, organizations, and the economy. It looks at the ways workers and communities can take stewardship of working life, work organizations, and the economy and critically assesses management and workers' strategies of workplace and organizational participation. The course also homes in on how contemporary alternative economic arrangements (such as worker cooperatives and numerous forms of self-managed community initiatives), the social and solidarity economy, and environmental and social movements prefigure the expansion of economic democracy and social change while they, at the same time, directly contest the ongoing crisis spawned by neoliberal capitalism. The course applies theory to practice via multiple case studies from the global North and South and student' own experiences with work and participative organizations in the for-profit, not-for-profit, and public sectors. Throughout, the course interlaces explorations of workplace, organizational, and economic democracy with critical adult learning theory and practice.
Some of the most pressing problems affecting community wellness can be traced to how stable infrastructures are eroding, resulting in underemployment, insecure housing, expulsions from prime real estate, and criminalization of the racialized and indigenous poor. This course provides some important conceptual frameworks that help us understand how these themes are interconnected through militarized finance capitalism that is also alternatively referred to as 'the new economy', 'casino economics', and 'crisis economics'. As devastating as these trends are, never have possibilities for transformation been more accessible through a myriad of inspiring social movements and innovative community activism and development. This course provides some critical literacy for organizing, and some hands-on experience in transformative community development.
Critical approaches to organizations focus on how organizational change and development is experienced by diverse groups of women and men who work within organizations, as well as how organizational change is influenced by broader historical, social, political, and economic forces. Through this course, students will have the opportunity to develop theoretical and analytical skills to critically assess organizational change, its socio-economic contexts, and its dimensions of sense making, language, power, inequality, and resistance in a variety of organizational settings (offices, factories, service sector firms, NGOs, non-profits, cooperatives, community groups, government units, schools, family businesses, etc.). We will explore the methods frequently used to ''restructure'' organizations (such as downsizing, outsourcing, contingent just-in-time policies); develop critiques of recent trends which emphasize ''empowerment'', ''organizational learning", and ''reengineering'' and reflect on alternative organizational models with a vision of social change. Throughout the course, we will endeavour to situate the critical perspectives, theories, and methods of organizational change we will be studying to actual cases (including your own experience with organizations) via a variety of learning formats.
Specialized exploration, under the direction of a faculty member, of topics of particular interest to the student that are not included in existing courses. While credit is not given for a thesis topic proper, the study may be closely related to such a topic. Guidelines and Form are available from the website: This course can also be designed as a field-based practicum in adult education and/or community development in an agreed setting. The course will include reflection, research, and writing on issues raised in practice.
This is the foundation course for Transformative Learning studies. It is designed to introduce students to a global planetary perspective. The concept of a global world order will be examined from historic, critical, and visionary perspectives. Issues of development/underdevelopment, human rights, and social justice perspectives are considered. A critical understanding of social power relations will be highlighted in the areas of gender, class, and race dynamics. The topics are approached as interdependent dimensions within a holistic education perspective.