Mr Gaston Bacquet
- Associate Tutor (School of Education)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9802-7249Biography
I hold a Trinity DipTESOL, a Master's Degree in TESOL (UCL) and I'm currently on the 3rd year of my PhD in Education at the University of Glasgow.
I am a qualified teacher with over 20 years’ experience. I taught in Chile, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, Japan and the UK, with experiences ranging from elementary and high-school teaching to working in government projects and lecturing at under and post-graduate level. I currently work as an Associate Tutor at the School of Education at Glasgow, leading seminars and supervising dissertation students in the MSc / MEd Educational Studies and TESOL programs.
Research interests
My doctoral research has inclusiveness at its core; not as a method, but as a holistic dimension that considers the our entire human experience from a social, cultural, sexual and spiritual perspective. By using participatory action research (PAR), it seeks to identify elements of cultural and structural violence present in higher education classrooms, and then to dismantle this violence through a pedagogy of nonviolence that draws on Eastern philosophy, ingenous wisdom traditions (ubuntu and Buen Vivir) and different intercultural perspectives.
In broader terms, I am interested in the intersection between nonviolent philosophical traditions, spirituality and decolonial pedagogical approaches, and how this intersection can help develop more inclusive, compassionate and ethical learning communities. From a methodological perspective I am interested in the application of action research and participatory and community-based approches.
My research interests and activities expand onto the following areas:
- Contemplative Pedagogy
- Higher Education
- Eastern spiritual traditions
- Decoloniality of knowledge, being and power
- Non-violence education
- Spiritual critical pedagogy
- (Critical) Participatory Action Research
Teaching
- Modern Educational Thought
- Seminars on Contemporary Issues
- Introduction to Educational and Social Research
- Guest lecturer for Education and Violence, in the course Educational and Sustainable Development
Additional information
Conferences and presentations:
September 12th, 2023 - How much participation is “participatory”? Opportunities and challenges in doing Participatory Action Research with Latin American teachers – British Educational Research Association (BERA) conference (Birmingham, UK)
June 28th, 2023 – Decolonial Care: Place, Practice, Politics (workshop exchange). Center for Peace and Conflict Studies (University of St Andrews, Scotland).
February 14th, 2023 – “A person's wellbeing is MY wellbeing": decolonial perspectives on non-violence for teacher training - 67th Annual Meeting of the Comparative and International Education Society (Washington D.C.)
December 6th, 2022 – “Violence and its sublimation within the fantasy-reality continuum: Between psychoanalysis and the theory of civilizing process” (Warsaw University, Poland)
July 14th, 2022 – “Non-violence as a practice of equality: an experiment in the Global South”– The 10th European Conference in Education (London, UK)
April 3rd, 2022 – “Decolonial perspectives for social justice - Challenges and possibilities in Chilean higher education”, Early Career Conference “Potential and Challenges in Education in Today’s World”, British Association for Comparative and International Education (UK)
October 9th, 2021 – “Towards a pedagogy of non-violence: a rationale for the Global South”, International Conference on Violence and Society, London Centre for Interdisciplinary Research.
July 15th, 2021 – “Developing Socially Inclusive Practices in Chilean Higher Education Classrooms Through Participatory Action Research” – The 9th European Conference on Education, London (UK)
April 8th, 2020 – “Teachers’ role in the process of identity construction in second-language learners” – International Conference on Languages, Literature and Linguistics, Rome
June 2019 – Member of the organizing committee for the Annual Doctoral Research Conference, University of Reading (UK)
March 25th, 2019 – ‘The classroom as an identity-building environment: an experiment in Myanmar” – Annual Language Studies PhD Conference, University of Reading (UK).
