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This paper focuses on spirituality and critical consciousness as two guiding forces for meaningful leadership. It further looks for the reconciliation of spirituality and criticality so as to deconstruct deep-seated leadership myths. Reconciling spirituality with critical perspective inspires individuals to have a critical and holistic understanding of engaged spirituality and leadership theorizing critical spirituality as an ontological and epistemic praxis to connect the inner world to the outer social reality and materiality. Adherence to spirituality through critical engagement helps to create a meaningful educational leadership space, fostering a sense of optimism and utopian envisioning by challenging the taken-for-granted assumptions and embracing diversity.

This study used a self-and peer-assessment activity in Moodle, a learning management system, to investigate the self-and peer-assessment abilities of student-teachers. To enhance self- and peer-assessment in some author-taught courses, students submitted online texts graded by their peers using a grading scale determined by course facilitators as a rubric or aspects approved by course facilitators. This study aimed to design and investigate self-, and peer-assessment activities among 18 students (10 boys and 8 girls) enrolled in one of Kathmandu University Schools of Education's MPhil/Ph.D. program in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) in Nepal in 2021. The objective was to identify the most effective strategies for involving student-teachers in the learning and assessment processes using self- and peer-assessment as a learning and assessment tool using action research as a research methodology. This study followed the procedures of planning, intervening, evaluating effectiveness, and sharing learning processes within the action research framework. In order to achieve the research objectives, this article discussed some of the Workshop activity's key strengths and applications within cognitive and constructivist theoretical frameworks, among others. The article concluded by outlining the key advantages of self-and peer assessment in increasing student engagement and improving higher-order skills. These are analytical, and evaluation skills developed through the process of grading self- and peer submissions on a variety of criteria (aspects). The findings show that students are responsible for learning, have metacognitive skills, and use a dialogical, shared teaching and learning model. For higher education, it is a useful tool for self-and peer- assessment.

The existing Western modern worldviews (i.e., post/positivism) or Western induced paradigm(e.g., critical and postmodern) seem insufficient for ensuring harmonious learning spaces in the context of the continuous professional development of Nepali school teachers. In this paper, we discuss context-responsive sociocultural perspectives of multiple Eastern wisdom traditional (EWT) belief systems such as prasna (question), kalaa (art), and artha (meaning) that contribute to harmonious professional learning spaces (inner and outer) for teachers in Nepal. Then, we introduce gyana/pragya, an integral paradigm, as a multiparadigmatic research design space for creating and sustaining harmony in the professional setting and within coresearchers. This research explores the possibility of conducting educational research (e.g., Teachers Professional Development) by adapting multiple EWT belief systems. Finally, we share enhanced harmony, an inherent quality of teachers and teacher educators for professional development.

Nutrition education at school can contribute to developing healthy nutritional behaviours in schoolchildren. This paper critically reflects on how participatory action research (PAR) empowered university researchers and a school community to co-develop a school-based nutrition education programme (SBNEP) that promotes healthy nutritional behaviours in basic-level schoolchildren (Grades 1–8). This study followed PAR as the methodological approach, where university researchers collaborated with the school stakeholders, also called 'co-researchers', to co-develop a SBNEP. This study was conducted in a public school located in the Chitwan district of Nepal from June 2018 to August 2022. The study involved basic-level schoolteachers, fourth to eighth-grade students and their parents/guardians, school leaders, and the PAR committee members as the co-researchers. The study used in-depth interviews, focus groups, participant observation, informal talks, and bridging-the-gap workshop methods. The interpretive phenomenological method was used to explain the meaning of the data. The findings of the study reflect that exploring the needs for good nutritional behaviours, prioritising them, and co-designing the SBNEP utilising the PAR methodology is a time-consuming project since it demands prolonged fieldwork, self-motivation, commitment, action with critical reflection (praxis), dialogic relation, and negotiation skills from both researchers and co-researchers. The study recommends that basic-level schoolteachers and researchers consider applying SBNEP using a participatory framework for transformational change in students' nutritional behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects upon and discusses the case of a participatory action research project in a public school in Nepal with the aim of exploring the possibilities for participatory approaches to contextualised teaching and learning. We discuss how research-degree students and school stakeholders involved in participatory needs assessment identified the need for contextualised teaching and learning and the participatory and generative model of contextualised teaching and learning we initiated in response. However, at the end of three different participatory action research (PAR) cycles, we came to an understanding that, for sustainable pedagogical reforms, even buzz words like 'participatory' and 'shifts in perspectives' have some limitations. In a bureaucratic schooling structure, like that in Nepal, pedagogical innovations for contextualised teaching and learning have to negotiate pre-structured schooling cultures, and therefore, any change in individual and group perspectives has to be accompanied by a shift in regular schooling design, from linear closedness to ecological openness. Otherwise, the innovations for contextualised teaching and learning are unlikely to be sustained in the face of the dominant practice architecture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines different layers of participation while conducting Participatory Action Research (PAR). In the journey of three years of fieldwork with teachers, many realizations were made about becoming co-researchers and engaging in a collaborative knowledgebuilding process for developing an engaged pedagogical approach. The paper had two purposes: a) exploring the different layers of participation in PAR, and b) documenting the lead researcher's continuous professional learning in understanding PAR. The lead researcher proposed "ignoring" to "autonomous" participation as levels. The lead researcher also changed from overly influencing roles on PAR to accepting co-researchers' voices and respecting their efforts for sustainable change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses experiences from school-based needs assessment within a Participatory Action Research (PAR) project aimed at facilitating quality education in public schools of rural Nepal. Being often a first stage in the process of research-action, Participatory Needs Assessment (PNA) offers space for community members' perceptions and attitudes toward their collective needs. In this light, this paper takes evidence from the first and the second authors' Ph.D. experiences, under the supervision of the third and the fourth authors to initiate PNA of a school. Also, incorporating the reflections from the fifth author as a critical friend, it observes the political, epistemological, ethical, and methodological challenges of doing such assessments; the challenges of involving all the stakeholders in identifying problems, and the transformative possibilities the approach inherently brings within it. On the whole, the paper reflects how, despite manifold conflicting interests of the multi-group stakeholders, relational ontology(ies) emerged in the cyclical and spiral process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This reflective paper explores Tara's doctoral research journey of realization and adaptation in auto/ethnography as a transformative research methodology. While reflecting on Tara’s journey, the auto/ethnographic paper emphasizes cultural perspectives, interpreting one's own experiences, thoughts, actions, and behaviors relating to society and culture. Likewise, auto/ethnography investigates and associates an individual's confrontation within specific educational, societal, and cultural contexts. With this ethos, the paper demonstrates how Tara, a mathematics teacher and doctoral student, encountered and observed auto/ethnography and discovered it as a path to transformation as a paradigm shift in transformative educational research by connecting lives and research (Dahal et al., 2022) considering the basis of ethics in auto/ethnography (Dahal & Luitel, 2022). Next, in this scenario of residing in cultural and societal context dealing with Tara’s emotions and settings of an education system, we have explored the journey of realization and adaption on how auto/ethnography blends analytic, evocative, and performative realms. Overall, we also realized that auto/ethnography guided us to delve through the past, present, and possible future experiences and unlatch Tara’s eyes to visualize a new era of research for upcoming generations in teaching and learning mathematics that reaches out to society and the nation whilst shifting to transformative educational research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of mathematics education in Nepal had not been explored until the end of the twentieth century. After exploration, it was not included in mathematics curricula due to the invasion of western modern mathematics since 1853. It is quite disheartening that the students who graduated from the university remained ignorant about Nepal's mathematics education history. Against this background, the central purpose of this argumentative paper is to explore oppressive forces behind colonial meddling and envisage an alternative anticolonial proposal of the history of mathematics education. By using anticolonial critical lens as a referent, I offer four phases-classical humanists, multi-epistemic, neo-colonial, and critical discourse – by challenging the linear, neutral, and informative ways of reading and writing history. These phases incorporate Nepal's rich socio-cultural, historical, and political landscape, contribute to creating new discourses and perspectives in mathematics education, and thus reconceptualize a history of mathematics education as a means of transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existing Western modern worldviews (i.e., post/positivism) or Western induced paradigm(e.g., critical and postmodern) seem insufficient for ensuring harmonious learning spaces in the context of the continuous professional development of Nepali school teachers. In this paper, we discuss context-responsive sociocultural perspectives of multiple Eastern wisdom traditional (EWT)belief systems such as prasna (question), kalaa (art), and artha (meaning) that contribute to harmonious professional learning spaces (inner and outer) for teachers in Nepal. Then, we introduce gyana/pragya, an integral paradigm, as a multiparadigmatic research design space for creating and sustaining harmony in the professional setting and within coresearchers. This research explores the possibility of conducting educational research (e.g., Teachers Professional Development) by adapting multiple EWT belief systems. Finally, we share enhanced harmony, an inherent quality of teachers and teacher educators for professional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to unpack and critique different forms of solipsism and whether its impacts on autoethnographic inquiry are overly self-referential. This paper offers thoughts on Western and Eastern perspectives on the self. It is argued that autoethnography as a genre and method of inquiry confronts challenges and tensions in terms of epistemology, methodology, and ethical issues, particularly the issues of solipsism as a major challenge. It is often critiqued that autoethnographers are not able to establish a clear theoretical standpoint and the autobiographic texts lack convincing arguments and scholarly rigor. In the meantime, it is not pragmatic to undermine the intent of autoethnographic inquiry which provides a space for culturally and politically relevant experience and embodiment. To this end, this paper explores the nuances of solipsism, theoretical and definitional gaps, and ways to critically deal with this issue while pursuing autoethnographic inquiry incorporating Western and Eastern perspectives of the self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on spirituality and critical consciousness as two guiding forces for meaningful leadership. It further looks for the reconciliation of spirituality and criticality so as to deconstruct deep-seated leadership myths. Reconciling spirituality with critical perspective inspires individuals to have a critical and holistic understanding of engaged spirituality and leadership theorizing critical spirituality as an ontological and epistemic praxis to connect the inner world to the outer social reality and materiality. Adherence to spirituality through critical engagement helps to create a meaningful educational leadership space, fostering a sense of optimism and utopian envisioning by challenging the taken-for-granted assumptions and embracing diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]