Mr Gaston Bacquet
- Associate Tutor (School of Education)
Biography
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 seeks to use participatory action research (PAR) to identify elements of cultural and structural violence present in Chilean higher education; it aims to challenge this violence through the utillization of non-violent strategies that draw from Cosmopolitanism, Eastern philosophy and indigenous perspectives (ubuntu and Buen Vivir).
In broader terms, I am interested in the intersection between Eastern spiritual traditions (Buddhism, yoga, Daoism), international wisdom traditions (ubuntu, Buen Vivir), and pedagogical practices in order to develop and promote non-violence within educational communities. From a methodological perspective I am interested in the application of participatory approches and action research.
My research interests and activities expand onto the following areas:
- Contemplative Pedagogy
- Higher Education
- Eastern spiritual traditions
- Decolonization of educational practices
- Non-violence education
- Spiritual critical pedagogy
- (Critical) Participatory Action Research
Teaching
- Modern Educational Thought
- Seminars on Contemporary Issues
- Introduction to Educational and Social Research
- Educational and Sustainable Development
- Comparative Education
Additional information
Conferences and presentations:
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).