# James A. McKernan

James McKernan (born November 7, 1950) is an American educational theorist,. He is a Professor of Education at East Carolina University, a constituent campus of the University of North Carolina.Professor McKernan retired from the University of Limerick as Dean, Professor and chair of the Faculty of Education after serving many years in the Faculty of Arts and Celtic Studies as College Lecturer in the Education Department at University College Dublin Ireland. Professor Jim McKernan was born bred and reared in Germantown, Philadelphia Pennsylvania. His Da, Barney was out of Annyala, Castleblaney, County Monaghan Ireland and had two years of schooling due to civil disturbances there. He could neither read nor write and Jim loved to read the newspapers to him and listen to his stories of Ireland Act in 1920 when Monaghan was then part of the new Irish Free State-which became a Republic independent of Britain in 1948. Ireland which was under British rule until the Partition of Ireland-which has caused the continuing "Troubles" was enacted by the Act of Ireland 1920. His father told him "keep to the schooling son it is the best way out of the muck". And "be kind and help others and enjoy yourself in this life lad as you will be a long time dead". Professor McKernan remembered that Jim went into the US Merchant Marine Service after graduation from the largest private school in the world with 6400 students. (Catholic Cardinal Dougherty in Philadelphi) He sailed the seas and even got caught up in a revolution spending a month in a harbour at Rio De Janeiro. He later met one of the exiled revolutionary educationalists, who fled Brazil then, Paulo Freire, at Harvard who explained his actions as being a simple 'Christian Socialist' and helping the indigenous native Brazilian Indians to read so as to escape "oppression" through a revoltionary pedagogy A 7 week course he designed . Jim worked as on Ordinary Seaman aboard SS Gulf Prince a super oil tanker and a WW2 Victory freighter the SS Mormacisle after almost two years at sea he returned to university at Temple University, in Philadelphia, graduating with honours. Afte this he enlisted and volunteered for duty in Vietnam and served aboard USS Halsey DLG-23 the Squadron frigate of DESRON 7 which included the aircraft carrier USS Hancock and other destroyers to engage the enemy in the South China Sea and Gulf of Tonkin. During his time in Vietnam McKernan was commended for his valour and meritorious conduct during combat operations, During Search and Rescue missions and during three battle missions. Upon return from the war, McKernan entered postgraduate studies at University College Galway-Professor Eustas O hEadeain O.P. Professor of Education. engaged him as a Master's student to help the Irish Traveller (Homeless indigenous folk of Galway) gain housing. Under the Galway Itinerant Settlement Committee all thirty-six Traveller families were housed in Galway-the first city to do so in the Republic of Ireland. Jim received a First Class Honours for his MA Thesis on 'Education of Traveller Children inG from the National University of Ireland McKernan wanted to help peace come in Northern Ireland and on foot of his Galway' work McKernan was awarded a PhD studentship and became Project Officer with the major Schools Peace and Cultural Studies Project which allowed democratic school-based curriculum development for teachers implementing the new curriculum aimed at tolerance and education for mutual understanding-eventually all schools in Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom were mandated to include the project's aim at education for mutual understanding in every school in the Kingdom. . Jim was a Project Officer on the Schools Cultural Studies Peace Project at the Ulster University in Northern Ireland. The project was jointly funded by the Joseph Rowntree Trust and N.I. Ministry of Education brought twelve secondary schools Catholic and State Maintained de facto Protestant schools together to experiment with peace and social education in the politically segregated Northern Ireland during "The Troubles". Jim received the PhD degree in 1978. Professor Jim McKernan has been the King Distinguished Professor and Chair of Education at East Carolina University; Dean and Chair of the Faculty of Education at the University of Limerick, Ireland; tenured College Lecturer, Faculty of Arts, University College Dublin, Ireland and Research Fellow, Northern Ireland Council for Educational Research, Department of Psychology, Queen's University of Belfast. McKernan taught Palestinian university students when Israel closed schools and colleges there. He has been a combat veteran of the American War in Vietnam serving with meritorious distinction in the United States Navy and was commended for his valour by US NAVY Admiral Thomas Weisner Commandant of US Naval Forces in Vietnam. Professor McKernan was awarded a William Fulbright Visiting Professorship position at the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University in 1985 He was also a Visiting Professor at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania and at Bethlehem University on the Palestinian West Bank in 1989 and 1995 when Israel Closed all schools and universities there and other European Volunteers taught on Vatican Territory in Jerusalem to keep education alive during the four-year education shutdown.

## Career

In 1980 McKernan was appointed as a College Lecturer in Education at University College Dublin where he established Curriculum Studies as a new field of teaching and educational inquiry in the Education Department. In 1991 he accepted the King Distinguished Professorship at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, US. He returned briefly to act as Dean and Chair of the Education Faculty at the University of Limerick, Ireland in 1993. McKernan returned to East Carolina University in 1994. McKernan's educational theory emphasizes the teacher as a researcher and schools as agencies of cultural reconstruction using action research to improve school practices. McKernan is a Founder and Member of the Educational Studies Association of Ireland and has served as its Secretary and General Editor at times since 1977. Professor McKernan is a major advocate for 'action research' -research used to solve practical social problems experienced by those who encounter the problems themselves and has developed a wide array of 'reflective practice' techniques as tools for employing action inquiry in educational settings ( Curriculum Action Research: London: Palgrave Macmillan 1998)
McKernan is listed in Marquis' 'Who's Who in America and has been awarded the Albert Nelson Lifetime Achievement in award for ascholarly publications for Marquis 'Who's Who in America' Jim served as Secretary for the Galway Itinerant Settlement Committee, Galway, Ireland which provided housing for homeless Irish "Travellers" (nomadic persons) in Galway Ireland In 1971 the group-housed all thirty-six families in Galway who had been homeless-the first city to do so in Ireland. He is a founding member of the Educational Studies Association of Ireland and was Editor of its journal Irish Educational Studies. He has also acted as General Editor of the Yearbooks of the South Atlantic Philosophy of Education Society (1998–2004) and was President of the Society during 2003-2005.He has been a finalist for the East Carolina University Lifetime Research Award.

## Published works

McKernan has authored more than one hundred publications including twenty-four books as author, co-author, or editor in books, book chapters, and scholarly journals in the US, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, France, Brazil, China, Germany, Canada and SwedenHe is currently completing a major work linking the evolution of Critical Philosophy with Education basing the thesis upon Socialist ideas and research His book Curriculum Action Research: A Handbook of Methods and Resources for the Reflective Practitioner (1996) has been translated into Chinese, Korean, Spanish, and Portuguese in its second edition.

### Books

* Curriculum and Imagination: Process Theory, Pedagogy and Action Research (London: Routledge) 2008 240 pp.
* Curriculum Action Research (London: Kogan Page) 1996 278 pp.
* Transfer at Fourteen: The Craigavon Two-Tier System as an Organizational Innovation in Education (Belfast: Northern Ireland Council for Educational Research) pp. 114, 1981.
* The Challenge of Change: Curriculum Development in Irish Post-Primary Schools 1970–1984. (Dublin: Institute of Public Administration) pp 163, 1984 with Dr. T. Crooks, Trinity College, Dublin (Co-author)
* Learning for Life: Tutor's Guide co-authored with E. Moore; E. O Donohue; J. Heuston; D. Condren and S. Fogarty. (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan Co.) pp. ;145, 1986

## Footnotes

* ↑ McKernan, J. (2008) Curriculum and Imagination (London:Routledge)
* ↑ Lewin, Kurt (1946) Resolving Social Conflicts (New York: Harper)
* ↑ IES is the scholarly educational research journal of the Educational Studies Association of Ireland, the major journal for educational inquiry in Ireland