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Interracial anxiety, psychological discomfort in the context of interactions with racial outgroup members, is associated with less satisfying interracial interactions and more avoidance of interracial contact. For White Americans, avoidance of interracial contact, especially with Black Americans, is an especially pernicious outcome, as it can perpetuate racial bias and anxiety. Mindfulness, the awareness and acceptance of present-moment experience, has potential as an intervention to reduce avoidance in interracial interactions given its theoretical mechanism of weakening the relationship between anxiety and avoidance behavior, necessarily reducing anxiety. The present study examined the effects of brief mindfulness training on anxiety and avoidance behavior in an impending interracial conversation. 59 White undergraduates were presented with the image of a Black interaction partner with whom they would discuss a racially-charged topic, and their anxiety about the impending conversation was assessed. After listening to mindfulness meditation or distraction control instructions, participants were asked to arrange chairs in advance of the supposed conversation. Avoidance was measured by the distance participants placed between chairs, as well as the latency until participants? proposed reschedule date for the conversation, when they were told that the interaction had to be postponed. It was hypothesized that condition and anxiety would significantly interact, such that positive relationships between anxiety and avoidance behaviors in the control condition would be attenuated in the mindfulness condition. Results generally did not support these hypotheses and are discussed in the context of post-hoc analyses that suggested mindfulness instructions may have functioned to increase the salience of existing trait-level anxiety.

Despite the efficacy of mindfulness-based interventions for a wide range of psychological problems, their mechanisms remain unknown. Analogue studies of key treatment components can help distinguish these approaches. One such component, focused-breathing meditation, has rarely been studied in direct comparison to another active and theoretically distinct technique, cognitive reappraisal. The present study examined the effects of mindful breathing and cognitive reappraisal instructions on negative affect and executive control, two potential mechanisms of mindfulness, in a laboratory setting. Non-clinical college undergraduates (N = 136) were randomly assigned to a 10-minute mindfulness, reappraisal, or mind-wandering control condition. Contrary to hypotheses, no between-group differences were found in sadness ratings, state mindfulness, or the inhibitory control dimension of executive control following the intervention. The mindfulness condition showed lower inattention compared to the mind-wandering condition. Implications of these results are discussed in terms of specific theoretical mechanisms of mindfulness- and cognitive-reappraisal-based interventions.

In this paper, we consider scholarly work on early career teacher attrition, and retention, from 1999 to 2010. Much of the literature has framed attrition as either a problem associated with individual factors (e.g., burnout), or a problem associated with contextual factors (e.g., support and salary). Some recent conceptualizations consider early career teacher attrition as an identity- making process that involves a complex negotiation between individual and contextual factors. On the basis of our review, we suggest the need to shift the conversation from one focused only on retaining teachers, toward a conversation about sustaining teachers. This shift offers the possibility of new insights about teacher education and about the kinds of spaces needed on school landscapes to sustain and retain beginning teachers. Cet article porte sur les travaux académiques évoquant l'attrition et la rétention des enseignants en début de carrière entre 1999 et 2010. Une part importante de la littérature présente l'attrition comme un problème associé à des facteurs individuels (par ex. épuisement professionnel) ou bien à des facteurs contextuels (par ex. appui et salaire). Selon certaines conceptualisations récentes, l'attrition d'enseignants en début de carrière serait un processus de formation identitaire impliquant des négociations complexes entre l'individu et des facteurs contextuels. À partir de notre analyse, nous évoquons le besoin de s'éloigner des conversations portant exclusivement sur le besoin de retenir les enseignants pour discuter plutôt de soutien aux enseignants. D'un tel changement peuvent découler de nouvelles idées sur la formation des enseignants et le type de milieux scolaires nécessaires pour appuyer et retenir les enseignants en début de carrière., Alberta Journal of Educational Research, Vol. 58 No. 1 (2012): Spring

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Kinesiology & Health Studies, University of Regina. viii, 70 p. There are six paradigms which have framed the supports and services available to people living with disability over the last 100 years. These paradigms (facilities-, services-, supports-, empowerment, resistance-based, and personal coherence) have composed people’s lives in institutions, schools, workshops, and community. Each paradigm, defined by practice and policy, is rooted in a particular view, or way of thinking, that is shared by society. This way of thinking, has either empowered or created dependency for people that experience disability. The literature presents the paradigms as mutually exclusive, each seamlessly transitioning into the next, leaving antiquated infrastructure, social policy, and ‘best practice’ to be cleaned up by the next. In fact, we are led to believe that the troubling actions, practices, and behavior’s that accompany past paradigms have been resolved, leaving behind a history of ignorance, institutional-based attitudes, and segregation that was directed towards people that experience disability. Reimagining Recreation Spaces to Establish Belonging is an autobiographical narrative inquiry into my lived experiences of walking alongside members of the disability community as an inclusive recreation professional. When conceptualizing my research puzzle, I imagined the metaphor of a parade; an ever-changing life space where I have become awakened to the storied lives of people living with disabilities. My tensions come from questions of ‘belonging’... As an inclusive recreation professional, where do I belong in the parade? Using narrative inquiry methodology (as conceptualized by Clandinin & Connelly), I hope to not only come to an understanding of how my time in the parade has impacted me, but also how my presence within the community has storied the lives of people living in mutually existing disability paradigms. I see my role as creating spaces for belonging, and carrying this out by living alongside others in a relational way through the professional knowledge landscape. Student yes

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Education, University of Regina. x, 256 p. In the fall of 2013, my colleagues, Sean Lessard, Lee Schaefer, and I were awarded funding through Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada to implement an after-school program for urban Indigenous youth within an urban centre within Saskatchewan, Canada. Our intent from the outset was to create a connecting space that would allow us, as narrative inquirers, to ethically enter into the community and to develop relationships with youth and their families. The after-school program occurred each Wednesday during the school year, within an elementary school gymnasium. With an interest in physical activity, I looked to engage youth in numerous movement activities. All the while, I was intentional from the early beginnings of the program to co-create with the community an intergenerational program that included not only youth, but also volunteers from the community, including First Nation elders and knowledge keepers, and pre-service teachers from the local university. My inquiry revolved around the experiences of three Indigenous youth mentors that were each part of the program for two or more years. It was through coming alongside these youth that I was able to gain an understanding of how they were experiencing the experience (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). What surfaced from the inquiry was a juxtaposition to the dominant narrative within existing literature pertaining to after-school programs for urban Indigenous youth. The research literature placed youth who partake in such programs as being at-risk and in need of an intervention to enhance either academic achievement or social success. This notion of beginning from a place of deficit suggested that an after-school program was the solution to supporting youth who were categorized as insufficient. This starting point, if you will, lends itself to the dominant research paradigms found within the literature designed to substantiate the success of such interventions. This inquiry has brought forth another story of Indigenous youth. Stemming from a reconceptualization of play, these three Indigenous youth were part of an after-school program community, which positioned each as knowledge holders. Through this narrative inquiry, it became apparent that the research participants did not see themselves as being in deficit, and in fact were strong contributors to the children in the program. I came to understand the tremendous wealth of knowledge these youth held, knowledge that positioned each as teacher. Dissimilar to the research literature, these youth were in fact impacting the program of which they were involved. Through the co-creation of a relational community I was able to come alongside the youth to relive (Clandinin, 2013) stories, which in turn allowed us all to see differently, shifting our stories to live by (Connelly & Clandinin, 1999). Student yes

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction, University of Regina. ix, 203 p. Living, telling, reliving and retelling my own autobiographical stories of experience, along with the stories of experience of students from my early years as a teacher, I entered formal narrative inquiry with two co-participants, Isabel and Anne-Marie. My personal and social justifications for this research were rooted in my living and living out silenced stories inside and outside of educational landscapes. In the midst of the inquiry journey, my research puzzle shifted, changed, and emerged: How might I live alongside students, attending narratively to our stories of experience, particularly to silenced stories, and then how might our identity making stories, stories to live by, come to be relived and retold? (Connelly & Clandinin, 1999, p. 94). Further puzzlings emerged: How might these stories alter and shift my connections with students? How might these stories and the process of coming to attend to them shift my practice and make me retell my own stories of school? How is the storying phenomenon of my youth akin to narrative inquiry? Does attending narratively to students’ lives offer an educator deeper insights into students’ tensioned, messy, difficult and bumping up stories of experience? When students’ stories of experience have been attended to narratively and mindfully, connected, over time and in place, might there be the potential for these students to understand their ability to live, tell, relive, and retell their own stories to live by? As my familial stories, my own stories, the stories of former students and the stories of the two co-participants looped and intersected and at times were difficult to follow, I came to see the unfolding and weaving of a larger, messier and gentler narrative of experience. “There is no one way to compose [final] research texts” (Clandinin, 2013, p. 206). Narrative inquiry is both a methodology and a phenomenon (Clandinin et al., 2006, pp. 176-181). During the narrative inquiry I noted that we are shaped by both our familial and familiar stories, that our stories of experience matter, that there is no certainty in narrative inquiry, nor is there certainty in storying; we can choose to relive or retell our stories of experience. Through the inquiry I came to understand that attending to stories of experience is relational; students seek someone who will attend to their stories. Keeping the tensioned stories untold is a continuing dominant narrative inside and outside of educational landscapes. Coming to relive and retell our stories of experience is a space of potential for youth, where they might come to know their stories of experience differently. Time and stories loop and can live out on multiple and complex plotlines. Educators must attend mindfully, deliberately and with awareness, to the wholeness of students’ stories. It is not the stories of experience alone that are important but the experience of attending to the narratives that is difference-making. Storying is identity making. I came to a deeper understanding of knowing differently the stories of school and school stories. I came gently to the space of attending to our silenced stories in the ebb and flow of stories that were often messy, difficult, tensioned, silenced, yet filled with a great deal of beauty amid uncertainty. I learned that the experience of attending to our own stories gives meaning to our work as educators. I came to understand that there is profound awareness in narrative inquiry. Storying as a process is as unique as each narrative, as each storier. Storying is life-making. Student yes

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction, University of Regina. vii, 130 p. This thesis is an autobiographical narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) into two research puzzles: First, how have experiences alongside nature shaped my personal knowledge landscape? Second, how is this knowledge negotiated on my professional knowledge landscape, and how does this negotiation shape or shift my pedagogy? With attention to Dewey’s (1938) theory of continuity and interaction in experience, Connelly and Clandinin’s (1988) conception of personal practical knowledge, and Connelly and Clandinin’s (1999) conception of stories to live by, I describe myself as a person who feels planted in nature. I also describe myself as a teacher of young children in school places. Clandinin, Schaefer and Downey (2014) conceptualize places inside-of-work as the professional knowledge landscape and places outside-of-work as the personal knowledge landscape. In this autobiographical narrative inquiry I inquire into moments of tension, as well as moments of narrative coherence (Carr, 1986), as I negotiate my personal knowledge landscape on my professional knowledge landscape (Clandinin et al., 2014). I illustrate the implications of this negotiation for my pedagogy, as well as possible implications for curriculum making, teacher education, and further research. Key findings from this research position nature as an animate teacher, show that nature itself reflects narrative conceptions of knowledge (Dewey, 1938), and illustrate that, while teachers live in tension (Aoki, 2005) as they navigate around competing and conflicting stories of school, there are possibilities for negotiating around tension to feel sustained, or rooted, on the professional knowledge landscape (Clandinin et al., 2014). Student yes

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Education, University of Regina. viii, 323 p. This study takes a narrative approach toward understanding experiences of foreign certified teachers in rural Saskatchewan classrooms. It grew out of my own experiences as a teacher of refugee students in my native country of Kenya and as an international graduate student and teacher assistant at a Canadian university. The study explores experiences of four foreign certified teachers in rural Saskatchewan. The experiences are situated within postcolonial and anti-colonial frameworks. Field text inquiry involved two main processes: highlighting “commonalities, connections and patterns” (Lewis & Adeney, 2014, p. 168) in the experiences of the foreign certified teachers, and identifying the “unique moments that stand out” (p. 168) in each individual study participant narratives. Implications for foreign certified teachers, school administration, teachers, students and parents, and further research are presented. A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy *, University of Regina. *, * p. Student yes

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Education in Curriculum & Instruction, University of Regina. v, 238 p. This narrative inquiry explores the journeys of women leaders in the educational landscape in an attempt to shed light on the phenomena of the experiences of women leaders with the purpose of sharing their experiences as a means of growth and learning for others and informing future leadership development and theory. The inquiry was born of personal interests as I began to puzzle about my own experiences and those of other women leaders as they journey into and attempt to navigate the historically male-dominated landscape of educational leadership and endeavour to balance their professional and personal lives. Two women leaders shared their storied experiences with me during open-ended conversations, both individual and group, that took place over a two-month period. Field texts included journal entries from 2012 when my puzzling began and from my past experiences; field notes gathered during work-in-progress meetings with other narrative inquirers; audio recordings of conversations with participants, which I transcribed and shared with the participants to ensure validity of interpretation; journaled observations and personal responses to the ongoing relational inquiry conversations. In the study I presented the unique journeys of the two participants as well as my own, inquiring into our experiences attending to the three-dimensional narrative inquiry space. While each woman leader’s experiences were unique in every way, there were resonances across our stories to which I attended. These resonances included the struggle to balance work and family, personal sacrifices, lack of leadership transition and development and the unanticipated demands and responsibilities that leadership brought to our lives. Student yes