Third spaces and video-stimulated recall: an exploration of teachers’ cultural role in an Indigenous education context

Abstract

This paper explores the use of video-stimulated recall as a reflective approach for supporting the development of third spaces in action research. The concept of third spaces is used as a conceptual descriptor of the specific intercultural context and relations between the researcher and participants present within the project. The paper summarizes findings drawn from an action research project conducted in partnership with an Inuit school board from northern Québec, Canada. The research goal was to explore the cultural role of teachers in the classroom during a unique teacher training course delivered as part of the project. Course work was structured using a stimulated recall procedure with teachers recording their own classroom practice with the use of video. Based on a content analysis of data drawn from project documentation, teachers’ cultural role can be seen as: agents of cultural development; facilitators of cultural transmission; and translators of traditional knowledge. Findings suggest that the establishment of a self-reflective community of practice and ‘third space’ point to the use of video-stimulated recall as a promising procedure for facilitating dialogue in third spaces.

Keywords:

• action research
• third space
• Indigenous
• teacher education
• video-stimulated recall

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for offering many constructive comments that greatly contributed to improvements in the final version of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.