Secondary Education Department Staff Homepage

Dr. David Geoffrey Smith Professor Dept. of Secondary Education University of Alberta T6G 2G5 Edmonton, Canada Email: davidg.smith@ualberta.ca Telephone: (780) 492-0499  Fax: (780)492-9402

Profile

David Smith was born in China during the  Maoist  revolution, then raised in  central  Africa   (Northern Rhodesia/Zambia) during the dying days of British  colonial rule.  He received his  Bachelor of Arts degree from the  University  of  British  Columbia (UBC),  in English Literature and Social Science. After  a  year as  a  child  care worker  with  emotionally  disturbed  children, he went to  Queen's University  in  Ontario to  complete a Master  of  Divinity degree,  with  a  thesis  in  the  field of comparative religion.

He subsequently obtained his after-degree Diploma in  Education  from  the University  of  Victoria (British Columbia) then taught school in that city for four years before returning to graduate school. He received his Master of  Arts  in  Curriculum Studies from UBC  with a thesis on the  history of Western childhood, then his Doctor of Philosophy from  the  University of  Alberta with a  dissertation  on the hermeneutics of the adult-child relation.

Research Interests

For the past twenty years, David's research and writing  have been in the areas  of  curriculum studies, teacher education, interpretive research, and the study  of  pedagogy as  a form of  cultural mediation.  Collections of his papers can be found in Pedagon: Interdisciplinary Essays in the Human Sciences, Pedagogy and Culture (NY: Lang 1999), Teaching in Global Times (Edmonton, Pedagon Press 2003), and Trying to Teach in a Season of Great Untruth: Globalization, Empire and the Crises of Pedagogy (Rotterdam NL: Sense Publishers 2006).

His current  research focusses  on  the   phenomenon   of   "globalization",  and the  question   of  the educator's unique  vocational   responsibility in the face of international  pressures to  make  educational work serve the univocal, and monological agenda of market forces. Through the development of an International Forum on Education and Society, an effort is being made to develop an intercivilizational dialogue on education that draws upon the rich Wisdom traditions of the world, from Asia, Africa and the Middle East as well as from the Euro-American tradition.

Publications

Books

1. Pedagon:Interdisciplinary Essays in the Human Sciences, Pedagogy and Culture. New York: Peter Lang Inc. (1999)

Pedagon, a collection of essays by Professor David Geoffrey Smith, exemplifies a new genre of interdisciplinary writing. Drawing on such discourses as hermeneutics, literary theory, international relations theory, media and technology studies, Buddhism, and education, Professor Smith weaves a series of illuminating and provocative tapestries that find their focus in questions relating the practices of culture to the conduct of pedagogy. Order the book from the Publisher.

2. Globalization, Postmodernism and Education. Beijing: Educational Sciences Press 2000.

This volume, translated into Chinese by Yangsheng Guo, contains some papers from Pedagon as well as Professor Smith's most recent writings in the area of globalization theory and pedagogy. Order from the publisher

3. Trying to Teach in a Season of Great Untruth: Globalization, Empire and the Crises of Pedagogy. Rotterdam NL: Sense Publishers 2006.

These essays by Canadian scholar David Geoffrey Smith address contemporary issues in teaching, curriculum and pedagogy through tensions arising from the processes of globalization and empire. Of particular sighificance are the prejudices of Homo Oeconomicus or Economic Man (sic) that reduce the most profound of human relations, like those between the young and their elders, to an evermore constraining grammar of profit and loss. The predations of empire in turn divide the world into a site of war between friends and enemies, winners and losers. The times are dangerous, and educators need to speak to the world from the wisdom of their experience of standing with the young, for whom alone the future may still be open.

4. Teaching in Global Times. Edmonton Pedagon Press 2003.

A collection of essays, essay reviews, and introductions on various themes related to globalization and education. Available on loan from the Coutts Library, University of Alberta.

Curriculum Vitae