We are confronted with global crises such as rising nationalisms, environmental
destruction and increasing global inequalities. The dominant evidence-based
discourse in education does not seem to be offering adequate responses to these
crises. It fails to address matters of human flourishing and to create opportunities
for alternative (educational) futures. This thesis redresses this gap by offering two
specific crisis responses: exploring a speculative and utopian method for
education research; and rethinking how curriculum in schools can be approached
as a lived practice concerned with human flourishing.
I explore how utopia as a method, based on the work of sociologist Ruth
Levitas, can guide the practices of education researchers in going beyond critical
scholarship through engaging in ontological inquiry and direct action. I
supplement utopia as method by the novel practice of ‘Punk Ethnography’, a
collaborative practice that emerged from my two-year collaborative case study
with one secondary international school in Hong Kong. Punk Ethnography applies
elements of the punk ethos and anarchist philosophy, and makes use of
ethnographic strategies to set up imaginative action-oriented initiatives. Utopia as
method is put to work as the analytical framework for the case study, focused on
the school-based curricular approach called ‘Human Technologies’. This practice
is evaluated against four considerations of curriculum as a lived practice that is
concerned with human flourishing and the good society.
My research suggests that approaches such as utopia as method and
Punk Ethnography that foreground small-scale, action-oriented and creative
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practices, can activate alternative futures in the present. This research contributes
to the diversification of education research practices and approaches to
curriculum in schools that go beyond the dominant evidence-based discourse,
putting human flourishing and responsible citizenship at the centre. It suggests
that crises can become opportunities for constructing alternative futures that
contribute to social change.