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Currere and Praxis
e‑ISSN 3065-4572 Open Access · CC BY 4.0
Vol. 3 · Issue 3 · 2026 Oct 1, 2026 Special Issue: 50th Anniversary of Currere

Exploring miseducation and education: Arriving at a parental engagement tutoring continuum through a currere, duoethnography, and arts-based reflexivity inquiry

SJ
Sandra Jack-Malik Cape Breton University Canada
JK
Janet L. Kuhnke Corresponding Cape Breton University janet_kuhnke@cbu.ca Canada
Pages253-271 PublishedOct 1, 2026 LicenseOpen Access
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VOL 3 · ISS 3 · 2026 Special Issue: 50th anniversary of Currere View issue

Abstract

This article describes an inquiry between a literacy tutor and a nurse-researcher. Using three interwoven research methodologies: currere, duoethnography and arts-based reflexivity, the researchers sought to understand complex tensions that resulted when parents’ engagement in the tutoring failed to meet the tutor’s expectations. The work is grounded in Dewey’s (1938) theory of experience and a narrative understanding of stories. Working through Pinar’s four moments of currere while engaging in dialogic and dangerous conversations, the authors came to understand how unexamined assumptions and expectations resulted in minimal progress and the reinforcement of limiting metanarratives. The authors engaged in ongoing arts-based reflexive practices, where they created art and shared it to understand the other’s perspective while imagining up more educative and inclusive tutoring. Slowly, through time, working within the three intertwined methodologies and grounded in the trust of their relationship, Janet asked thoughtful and often dangerous questions. She also shared her experience of developing and living out best practices within diabetes-related wound and foot care within communities. This led to the consideration of a parental engagement tutoring continuum. A continuum that allows parents to enter the tutoring and contribute as they choose and as trust develops. By unlearning pedagogical certainties and by challenging assumptions and expectations, tutoring spaces were created where learning is more likely to occur and where parental involvement is routinely welcomed, encouraged, and celebrated.

Keywords

#Parental engagement continuum #tutoring #duoethnography #currere #reflexivity

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Copyright (c) 2026 Janet L. Kuhnke, Sandra Jack-Malik

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