Authors: Cislaghi, Beniamino Ferdinando, Gillespie, Diane, Mackie, Gerry

Palgrave Macmillan Summary:

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This book describes how a program of values deliberations–-sustained group reflections on local values, aspirations, beliefs and experiences, blending with discussions of how to understand and to realize human rights--led to individual and collective empowerment in communities in rural Senegal. The study explains what happens during the deliberations and shows how they bring about a larger process that results in improved capabilities in areas such as education, health, child protection, and gender equality. It shows how participants, particularly women, enhance their agency, including their individual and collective capacities to play public roles and kindle community action. It thus provides important insights on how values deliberations help to revise adverse gender norms.

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In a journey to the theoretical roots of human psychology, Diane Gillespie defends the concept of contextualism in a field in which mechanism has prevailed. Gillespie explains both theories in a historical overview of cognitive psychology and then contrasts them in three chapters on visual perception, memory, and categorization. She clarifies the inadequacy of mechanism as the sole model of cognition by including narratives based on her own life that focus on the dynamic ways we interact with the world. Providing a subtheme of contemporary concern, Gillespie argues that a psychological theory open to everyday contexts has important implications for women, whose perspectives have been underrepresented in the literature of cognitive psychology. She does not posit contextualism as the next exclusive viewpoint but suggests instead a pluralism with no one viewpoint overshadowing the others.

In McGill Journal of Education, [S.l.], v. 40, n. 1, nov. 2006. ISSN 1916-0666. 

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Diane Gillespie interprets a teaching story, written over a decade ago, about a troubling student who failed her course. Using George Lakoff’s and Mark Johnson’s cognitive linguistic theory, she shows how the conceptual metaphors implicit in her interactions with the student prevented her from responding helpfully to the student’s situation.

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Diane's reexamination of “Charlie’s Story" demonstrates how conceptual metaphors, as interpretive tools for narrative analysis and reflection, can reveal the philosophical and social commitments that shape teachers’ pedagogical practices.

Diane's publications appear in scholarly journals, newspapers, book chapters and quarterly magazines. Browse her work in the fields of Higher Education, Critical Pedagogy, Race & Ethnicity, Teaching and Learning, Women and Politics, Community-Led Development and more.