University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 8-2011 Decolonial Multiculturalism and Local-global Contexts: A Postcritical Feminist Bricolage for Developing New Praxes in Education Katharine Matthaei Sprecher [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons, Curriculum and Instruction Commons, Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons, Educational Psychology Commons, Educational Sociology Commons, Elementary and Middle and Secondary Education Administration Commons, Elementary Education and Teaching Commons, Inequality and Stratification Commons, Other Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons, Other Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons, School Psychology Commons, Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education Commons, Student Counseling and Personnel Services Commons, and the Urban Education Commons Recommended Citation Sprecher, Katharine Matthaei, "Decolonial Multiculturalism and Local-global Contexts: A Postcritical Feminist Bricolage for Developing New Praxes in Education. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2011. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/1129 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Katharine Matthaei Sprecher entitled "Decolonial Multiculturalism and Local-global Contexts: A Postcritical Feminist Bricolage for Developing New Praxes in Education." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Education. Allison D. Anders, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Gina U. Barclay-McLaughlin, Tricia McClam, Leslee A. Fisher Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) Decolonial Multiculturalism and Local-global Contexts: A Postcritical Feminist Bricolage for Developing New Praxes in Education A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Katharine Matthaei Sprecher August, 2011 ii Copyright © 2011 by Katharine Matthaei Sprecher All rights reserved. iii Dedicated to the many children and youth who have taught and inspired me with their tenacity, courage, humor, and generosity of spirit. Thank you. iv Acknowledgements I am grateful to so many for support, mentorship, help, friendship, and love. I thank Allison Anders for her outstanding guidance as my advisor and dissertation chair. Allison demonstrated endless patience and flexibility, helping me to recognize my oversights, discover new directions, and hone my writing skills through her meticulous reads and probing comments. Allison also invited me to join the Healing Transitions research team at the University of Tennessee, affording me many opportunities to work with and learn from resettled children with refugee status. Gina Barclay-McLaughlin joined my committee despite an overloaded schedule and provided dedicated and thorough feedback that helped shape my research directions and writing voice. I also want to thank Gina for her mentorship, her passionate interest in my work, and our long and inspiring conversations. Tricia McClam not only served on my committee, but mentored me while I assisted her on the Grief Outreach Project, which she developed for the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences. My work with Tricia guided my explorations into grief and loss among schoolchildren and informed my chapter discussions on relevant interventions. Leslee Fisher completed my committee, providing expertise in methodological bricolage, feminist theories, and cultural studies. Thank you, Leslee, for your careful reads and suggestions–particularly your very important reminder not to neglect homophobia and heteronormativity in my human rights and social justice discourse. Finally, each of my committee members deserves a standing ovation for the simple fact that my dissertation is over four hundred pages. v Many other people mentored and guided me through my graduate experience and deserve my heartfelt gratitude. Barbara Thayer-Bacon has been a mentor, teacher, and friend. Her course on multicultural education inspired much of my core research, and her careful reading of and responses to my comprehensive exam essay on critical multiculturalism informed my prospectus development. In addition, Barbara’s course on feminisms in education and her scholarship on feminist and relational epistemologies inspired my explorations into relational learning. Denise Bates welcomed me into the Healing Transitions family, which she co-facilitated with Allison Anders. Denise has also been a friend, teacher, and mentor, guiding me through my comprehensive exam essay on students with refugee status and helping me negotiate the unfamiliar terrain of a new (to me) discipline, public health. Denise’s expertise in serving resettled refugee communities proved to be indispensible to my learning process. Finally, but certainly not least of all, I am grateful to Clea McNeely. I began working for/with Clea in 2009 on the Caring Across Communities (CAC) National Evaluation of school-based services for immigrant and refugee students. Clea has proven to be a great friend, advocate, mentor, and teacher. Working with Clea has informed both my dissertation work and my professional growth. I look forward to our continued work and friendship. I have, quite obviously, been blessed with many mentors and friends, and I will try to do everyone justice in this essay. Diana Moyer inspired me intellectually with her thoughtful and exciting courses on educational foundations, history of education, and cultural studies. Denise Harvey kindly guided me through the piloting of a new undergraduate course, “International Education,” and exposed me to new readings on vi global education that I used in my dissertation. Noah De Lissovoy graciously allowed me to corner him on an elevator at the 2009 American Educational Studies Association conference to discuss the paper he had just presented. That paper became a core feature of my dissertation, and Noah proved to be an encouraging ally, attending my related AESA presentation the following year and responding enthusiastically to my request to send him my finished dissertation articles. I am especially grateful to the Burundian children with whom I worked in 2008, their families, and the teachers who let me into their school and shared so much with me. Teaching and learning with the children, in particular, was a life-changing experience I will never forget, and I hope I am a better person for it. I also wish to thank the many service-providers and parents who participated in the CAC study and shared their stories in the hopes of helping others who work with students with immigrant or refugee status. Some of the parents overcame great personal fears to speak to us, and I hope to honor their courage with the work I produce. I thank the women and man who helped me so many steps of the way and rarely get thanked: Christine Tidwell, Amanda Rieger, Bonnie Bull, Karen Walker, Beverly Cate, Jeffrey Abrams-Cohen, Madison Norman, Sylvia Miller, Julie Harden, Kris Bronstad, and April Phillips. You have helped me order books, process letters of recommendation, procure travel funds, fix my computer, format my dissertation, get paid, get departmental approvals, and generally figure out what is going on and what I need to do. Thank you, thank you, and thank you. vii I shared this journey with many other graduate students whose friendship and support has been so valuable: Corey Kittrell, Hui Huang, Jessica Lester, Kathy Evans, Nicholas Mariner, Tingting Qi, Amelia Davis, Scott Ellison, and Tracia Cloud have been the cultural studies and/or education pals with whom I have endured, celebrated, and discussed the meaning of meaning. To Jessica, I owe special thanks for her valuable feedback on papers, cover letters, job interviews, and life in general. To my dear friends back in Portland, Oregon, particularly Laurie Lava-Books, Beverly James Neel, and Katrina Cole: thank you for being so loving from afar and telling me you are proud of me. I miss you all every day. Finally, I thank my family. To my mother, Lucy Harris Jr., my sister, Christina Sprecher, and her husband, Ben Weston: thank you for letting me escape to your homes across the mountains and just be , and allowing me, at forty-some years of age, to do my laundry at your house when I “come home from college.” Mostly, thank you for being there for me, for your love, and for helping me get to a place in life where such an endeavor is even possible. We have survived a great deal. Ava and Liam: thank you for providing regular sessions of silly therapy, free of charge, and teaching me two very important life lessons: 1.) every person should play Hide and Seek at least once a week, and 2.) everything feels better when you wear a crown. To my aunt and uncle, Kathy and Bob Reinke, thank you