Catching Up With Doctoral Student, Jillian Vancoughnett
We are excited to share the journey of Jillian Vancoughnett, one of Debbie’s dedicated doctoral students in the Department of Curriculum Studies at the University of Saskatchewan. Today we will reflect on her transformative journey. Under Debbie’s mentorship, Jillian completed a narrative inquiry that explored the profound experiences of parents of children with needs in the education system.
Jillian’s dedication to this research stems from her rich background as a special education teacher in which she has walked alongside parents and family members as a cornerstone of her professional identity. Jillian’s unique perspective, shaped by her roles as an educator and mother of three young children, has driven her passion for parent engagement, welcoming environments, and an ethic of care within the school community.
Addressing parents, Jillian emphasizes their expertise in understanding their children, urging them to actively participate and be a part of their child’s educational journey, asking questions without concern or fear of consequences. Simultaneously, she shares a message with educators, reminding them that parents are the true experts on their children. Encouraging open communication and relationship building, Jillian believes that aligning parent knowledge with teacher knowledge will authentically and meaningfully benefit students in their educational journey.
WHERE IT ALL BEGAN
Jillian's passion for education and community engagement traces back to her undergraduate days when she took a transformative class on community education taught by Debbie. Inspired by the concepts of parent engagement, home visits, and community education, Jillian knew that she wanted a career that focused on creating space and voice on the school landscape for parents, families, and children who found themselves marginalized.
“When I became a parent, I was awakened to the experience that parents must focus on the school landscape. And through my experience with parents working in community schools, and children who have needs, I was always drawn to their experiences specifically,” Jillian shared.
Embarking on her PhD journey, Jillian conducted a narrative inquiry focused on the experiences of parents with children with needs in school. Recognizing the limited literature on this crucial inclusion of parent perspectives and voice in the special education literature during her Master’s program, Jillian aimed to shed light on the lived experiences of parents of children with needs.
“There was only one professor I was going to do my PhD under, and that person was Debbie. She was a huge driving force for me,” she told us.
JILLIAN’S METAPHOR OF A RAINBOW BIKE
Through her narrative beginnings, Jillian established the metaphor of a rainbow bike, which she then used throughout the remainder of her dissertation. The concept of the rainbow bike first emerged during Jillian’s Narrative Inquiry class taught by Debbie.
“I struggled for days to figure out how I was going to begin. And then it dawned on me....my rainbow bike! I was given a rainbow bike when I was 6 years old. As a child, it was used as a place of escape from the trauma and stress I was experiencing at home and school. As I grew older and matured, I realized that my rainbow bike was a place of great adventure, new learning, and freedom.”
JILLIAN’S RESEARCH DESIGN
Jillian’s narrative inquiry involved three pairs of parent partners, in which together they explored the intricacies of their journeys and the challenges and successes they faced within the school community. Their research took place in a three-dimensional space, capturing the stories of her research participants as they unfolded over time, their memories and current realities, and their envisioned future possibilities.
“Through sharing our stories, we journeyed to childhood homes, communities, and schools,” Jillian reflected. “This narrative inquiry has been a long and in-depth rainbow bike ride, backward and forward in time, inward and outward in reflections and conversations, re/visiting many places during the sharing of stories of our lives.”
Jillian’s research is a reflection of her commitment to understanding the intricate tapestry of parent knowledge. It has become clear to her that if parent knowledge is used alongside teacher knowledge, “it is possible to dramatically transform the current hierarchy of schools, creating teaching and learning centres in which parents have a place and a voice,” she noted.
SOME OF HER RESEARCH FINDINGS
Language and Labels
One aspect of Jillian’s work was her exploration of language and labels in the field of special education. She advocates for a shift away from terms like ‘special needs’ and ‘intensive needs,’ preferring a more inclusive and empowering phrase - “a child who has needs, or a child with needs.”
“Language and labels are very useful and we do need them, but they should not define the child and can be quite limiting,” she said.
Jillian believes that a label tells us only one thing about a child, while it leaves out many more characteristics and qualities that make up who that child is. To quote Chimamanda Adichie, it tells a “single story” of the child. Sadly, it is a deficit story as well.
Switching to a term such as ‘a child with needs’ is a shift in perspective. Instead of reflecting a judgment, it reflects an observation. By putting the descriptor behind the word ‘child,’ it becomes just one aspect of the child’s profile, not the defining aspect.
Schools as Kingdoms
Arising out of Jillian’s research was the metaphor of schools as kingdoms. The comparison of a school to a kingdom included various roles supporting the school’s functioning. Shared stories revealed how educators or leaders assumed positions of power over parents, how teachers assumed the role of experts of the child or of their teaching and learning, and how teachers consciously or unconsciously engaged in exclusionary practices such as their use of formal, education-specific language. The perception formed for parents was that schools, operating like kingdoms, prioritized the agendas of those within, leaving parents feeling like outsiders with limited access and a peripheral role in their functioning.
Co-Constructed Parent Knowledge
In questioning this metaphorical kingdom, Jillian expanded on Debbie’s conceptualization of parent knowledge by introducing the concept of co-constructed parent knowledge. Such a notion recognizes the collaborative efforts of parent partners in shaping new understandings of and possibilities for their children.
In parent partnerships, individual parent knowledge evolves into a collaborative effort where understanding each partner’s strength is crucial. Max Depree (1990) wrote about roving leadership, where leadership falls to the individual best able to lead at any point in time, regardless of their title or position. Parents exhibit roving leadership within families, navigating various situations based on their unique abilities. This collaborative approach involves both parents utilizing their knowledge and determining, together or separately, who is best suited to lead in a given situation. This “tag team” approach enables parents to combine their knowledge and strengths to support their child in a way that is richer than either one of them could do on their own.
JILLIAN’S RESEARCH CONCLUSION
A pivotal conclusion of Jillian’s research involved envisioning teaching and learning centres where parents have a significant role and voice, a newly imagined structure that challenges the current hierarchical structure of schools.
According to Jillian, “We have been living and telling the same old story of school for a very, very long time. When we retell the story, in order to live it in new ways, we create a new landscape where shoulders relax, authority and power are dismantled, and the approach becomes familycentric.”
Jillian suggests reimagining the typical concept of “school” as a Teaching and Learning Centre (TLC). By doing so, she envisions a shift from a hierarchical structure to a relational, safe, and comfortable space that provides TLC - tender loving care - for all children, parents, families, and teachers.
“It is no longer about power and authority and who is in charge. It becomes a shared space for teachers and parents to walk alongside one another, every day,” she adds.
Her hope is that the experiences shared by parents in her inquiry will serve as a source of education for others on a similar journey, for educators navigating the entrance of children with needs into schools, and for schools themselves seeking inclusivity and the desire to “walk alongside” one another.
JILLIAN’S DEFENSE
Jillian Vancoughnett successfully defended her doctoral work on December 11th, 2023. We celebrate Dr. Jillian Vancoughnett’s impactful work and the valuable insights she has contributed to understandings of parent knowledge, particularly the parent knowledge held and used by parent partners raising a child with needs.
NOTE FROM DEBBIE
Working with doctoral students is such a gift and such a privilege! It is amazing to see how each student picks up a concept, embraces it, and then expands upon it. Jillian’s contribution to understandings of parent knowledge, by exploring how parent partners use their parent knowledge as they raise their children, is truly significant! It is a new, and critically important, contribution to this body of literature.
Working with Jillian has been such a rich experience! As a human being, Jillian is warm, funny, and loving! We have shared many laughs and special moments along this journey! I have been gifted with opportunities to spend time with Jillian’s family and to share in parts of her life. As a graduate student and academic, Jillian is determined, persistent, and an open learner. We have shared many tears and hard moments along this journey too. Although doctoral work is not for the faint of heart, Jillian has risen above all challenges and has written a beautiful dissertation with insight and impact. I cannot wait to see her cross the stage at the spring convocation at the University of Saskatchewan on June 3, 2024, wearing her PhD robe and hood!
Jillian’s dissertation, entitled The Rainbow Bike. Experiences of School for Parents Whose Children Have Needs: A Narrative Inquiry into Whose Knowledge Counts, can be accessed at:
https://harvest.usask.ca/items/eac53dca-f815-4384-9090-5c987e9b5973
Jillian can be reached at jillianvanc@gmail.com.