PhD Oral Exam - Wilson Hernandez Varona, Education

When studying for a doctoral degree (PhD), candidates submit a thesis that provides a critical review of the current state of knowledge of the thesis subject as well as the student’s own contributions to the subject. The distinguishing criterion of doctoral graduate research is a significant and original contribution to knowledge.

Once accepted, the candidate presents the thesis orally. This oral exam is open to the public.

Abstract

In Colombia, teachers in certain regions coexist with violence daily. Between the years 2000 and 2010, there were 949 educators assassinated, 4,003 threatened, 1,092 displaced, 60 disappeared and 70 refugees (Wallace, 2011). Between 2019 and 2020, there were 25 teachers killed and 920 threatened (Noticias Caracol, 2020). Between January and June 2023, approximately 7,500 people nationwide were impacted by events that put their lives, educational institutions, or access to schools at risk. Of them, 370 were educators, 89 administrators, and 7.026 were children (NRC, 2023).

It is important to note that attacks against teachers have recently incorporated other expressions of violence never documented before. Given the lack of research on how teachers have lived and taught amid this undying and adaptable violence present in Colombia, this research project proposes to investigate what the modes of violence (Zizek, 2008) used against teachers are, what the teachers’ understanding of violence is, and how they interact with or resist it.

Through conversaciones, a qualitative method that aligns with oral history methodology, the teachers who participated in this research (hereinafter, research collaborators) and I reflected on their contexts of teaching and living, their understanding of violence, their experiences with violence, and their preparedness for violence. We reflected on practices and knowledge that have the potential to inform the structuring of trauma-sensitive pedagogies for teachers. Moreover, the conversaciones enclose oral histories of what it means to teach and live in conditions of duress, such as those experienced in some regions of Colombia.