A T A Magazine

In 1967 the Alberta Teachers' Association published, in honour of Canada's Centennial, a history of the public school system in Alberta entitled Schools of the Foothills Province. This informative book published for the Association by University of Toronto Press is now followed by a companion volume written by the same author, which tells the story of the Association itself, and its long and sturdy efforts to improve the position of teachers and the quality of education in the province. After providing the background to the formation of the ATA (which officially began on July 24, 1918) the author goes on to describe the growth of the organization from its beginnings as a spare-time activity for teachers to a strong influential union. From its earliest years it was affiliated with the labour movements of the Twenties, and fought with increasing strength for the rights of Alberta teachers. Throughout this study, the ATA's concern is evident not only for the economic aspects of teaching for higher salaries and pension schemes, but also for other features: departmental examinations and curricula, preparation and certification of teachers, and educational research. The ATA's mercurial relations with the provincial government are related, its struggle through the depression years and its blossoming in the first decade after 1935 under a Social Credit Government. Leading personalities move through this story against the turbulent background of a growing young province, contributing an air of vigorous controversy and achievement to the story of the ATA.

Charting new research directions, this book constructs a series of imperatives for linking culturally informed research around household sustainability with policy and planning. The household, or 'home', is a critical scale for understanding activities that connect individual behaviours and societal attitudes. The focus on the household in this collection provides a window into the sheer diversity of homemaking and maintenance activities that entail resource use. These practices have affective or emotive dimensions as well as habitual aspects. Diversity, innovation and change at the household scale is often missed in policy approaches which assume that simplistic economic motivations drive demand and this can in turn be 'managed' through regulation or market pricing. The research challenge extends beyond describing existing unsustainable economies driving resource intensive behaviour to consider realistic options for transformations in cultural practices, material relationships and, ultimately, the political economies they sit within. Without change in these systems, government initiatives to promote ecological modernisation run the risk of simply green-washing the very economies of consumption that currently drive unsustainable practices. Social and cultural change at the household level is critical to promoting sustainability at a range of wider scales.

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“Do what is right because it is right; and leave it alone.” That’s the credo two very different “Traitor Brothers“ live by. Brothers by thought and deed, they put people before politics when it makes life better for the average person. The Traitor Brothers is a near-historical suspense thriller with dollops of politics, sociology, diplomacy, organized crime, and intercultural friendship. ------------ Similar in family background and education, from different cultures but the same generation, working at comparable levels for their respective governments, one born in Soviet Russia, the other in Imperialist Japan, two iconoclasts dedicate their lives to improving life in their countries and not just following orders or improving their personal positions. They come together at the United Nations in New York in the 1950s, later again in Far Eastern Siberia, and finally in Japan in the early 1990s as the Soviet coup d’etat against Mikhail Gorbachev threatens to undo their efforts to improve lives in both their countries. Recent political events from around the world have shown us what happens to Foreign Service Officers, public servants and patriots when they act with integrity and dedication towards the best interests of their fellow citizens instead of their putative “superiors.” Russia has once again thrust itself onto our collective consciousnesses and it is informative for people to see how we got here and the kind of people we need to get us out!

People's lives can change by the smallest of circumstances, turning left at an intersection instead of right, sitting beside an unknown person in a crowded lecture hall, filling in at work for a colleague while they go on vacation. My life changed when in my last semester of Graduate study, I saw an ad posted by the Japanese government to come work in the Land of the Rising Sun. The idea was that I'd have a bit of an adventure, make some money, and take the time to consider whether I wanted to get a Doctorate degree or not. Three decades years later, I was still doing it, finding a fertile niche working in post-secondary institutions and as a trainer for Oil and Gas operations in the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa. As the Japanese proverb goes, I'd already eaten the poison, so I might as well lick the plate. I've lived under absolute monarchies, constitutional monarchies, a number of "Presidents-for-Life," civil wars, foreign military occupations and outright terrorist dictatorships. Along the way, I've played Duck, Duck, Goose with Japanese elementary school students; become a bit of a media celebrity for no earthly reason other than the accident of my birthplace; witnessed the aftermath of a crucifixion in Yemen; seriously thought I was about to be kidnapped for ransom; had three colleagues shot dead a football field away from where I was standing; was within spitting distance of where modern drone warfare was born, and commuted to work in an armoured convoy of Toyota Land Cruisers, wearing full body armour and accompanied by up to a half dozen armed private security members. So it began playing Duck, Duck, Goose and progressed to trying to avoid the terrorism, revolutions and uprisings.

The Palgrave International Handbook of Action Research offers a vivid portrait of both theoretical perspectives and practical action research activity and related benefits around the globe, while attending to the cultural, political, social, historical and ecological contexts that localize, shape and characterize action research. Consisting of teachers, youth workers, counselors, nurses, community developers, artists, ecologists, farmers, settlement-dwellers, students, professors and intellectual-activists on every continent and at every edge of the globe, the movement sustained and inspired by this community was born of the efforts of intellectual-activists in the mid-twentieth century specifically: Orlando Fals Borda, Paulo Freire, Myles Horton, Kurt Lewin. Cross-national issues of networking, as well as the challenges, tensions, and issues associated with the transformative power of action research are explored from multiple perspectives providing unique contributions to our understanding of what it means to do action research and to be an action researcher. This handbook sets a global action research agenda and map for readers to consider as they embark on new projects.