Education Commons^™

Prefiguring Alternative Worlds: Organic Critical Literacies And Socio-Cultural Revolutions, Miguel Zavala, Noah Asher Golden

Education Faculty Articles and Research

This paper offers a vision of critical literacies that speak to education, revolution and the institutional arrangements of capitalism. We provide a path forward for educating within/against neoliberalism and for understanding the imperative to prefigure spaces and a language of possibility. Our aim is to situate the need for critical spaces in revolutionary struggles, and to delineate a theoretical framing of organic critical literacies while grounding them in generative exemplars. Drawing upon the concept of prefigurative politics, we demonstrate how mediation and place-based praxis must be at the core of critical literacies that challenge capitalism and its institutional arrangements, …

Examining The Relationship Between School Climate And Peer Victimization Among Students In Military-Connected Public Schools, Kris T. De Pedro, Ron Avi Astor, Tamika D. Gilreath, Rami Benbenishty, Ruth Berkowitz

Education Faculty Articles and Research

In the Iraq and Afghanistan war context, studies have found that military-connected youth—youth with parents and/or siblings serving in the military—have higher rates of school victimization than their nonmilitary-connected peers. A positive school climate—where students perceive high levels of school connectedness, caring relationships and high expectations from adults, and meaningful participation—is associated with lower rates of victimization in secondary public schools. Based on a survey of 7th, 9th, and 11th grade students (n=14,493) enrolled in six military-connected school districts (districts that have a significant proportion of military-connected students), this study explores victimization rates and the role of school climate, deployment, …

Critical Pedagogy And Participatory Democracy: Creating Classroom Contexts That Challenge “Common Sense”, Lilia D. Monzó, P. Zitlali Morales

Education Faculty Articles and Research

In this response to “The Political Nuances of Narratives and an Urban Educator’s Response,” the authors applaud Pearman’s critical approach to deconstructing and challenging narratives of heroic figures who single-handedly change the world and agree with him that these narratives restrict the sense of agency that may propel citizens to become actively involved in social change efforts. We argue that it is important to question why these narratives exist and to understand them in light of the hegemonic capitalist structure that exploits the masses in service to the capitalist class. Although we agree with Pearman that democracy is best served …

Cultivating Literacy And Relationships With Adolescent Scholars Of Color, Noah Asher Golden, Erica Womack

Education Faculty Articles and Research

The authors explore strength-based learning projects that value the lived realities and literacies of adolescent scholars of color, setting the stage for the powerful relationships through which meaningful learning happens.

‘Tell Your Own Story’: Manhood, Masculinity And Racial Socialization Among Black Fathers And Their Sons, Quaylan Allen

Education Faculty Articles and Research

This study examines how black fathers and sons in the U.S. conceptualize manhood and masculinity and the racial socializing practices of black men. Drawing upon data from an ethnography on Black male schooling, this paper uses the interviews with fathers and sons to explore how race and gender intersect in how Black males make meaning of their gendered performances. Common notions of manhood are articulated including independence, responsibility and providership. However, race and gender intersect in particular ways for black men. The fathers engaged in particular racial socializing practices preparing their sons for encounters with racism. Both fathers and sons …

“There’S Still That Window That’S Open”: The Problem With “Grit”, Noah Asher Golden

Education Faculty Articles and Research

This narrative analysis case study challenges the education reform movement’s fascination with “grit,” the notion that a non-cognitive trait like persistence is at the core of disparate educational outcomes and the answer to our inequitable education system. Through analysis of the narratives and meaning-making processes of Elijah, a 20-year-old African American seeking his High School Equivalency diploma, this case study explores linkages among dominant discourses on meritocracy, opportunity, personal responsibility, and group blame. Specifically, exposition of the figured worlds present in Elijah’s narratives points to the attempted obfuscation of social inequities present in the current educational reform movement and our …

Child Maltreatment And Military-Connected Youth: Developing Protective School Communities: School Responses Of Referral And Clinical Interventions Do Not Address Needs Of Military Families, Kris T. De Pedro

Education Faculty Articles and Research

"Since the beginning of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, more than 2 million school-aged youth in the United States have had a parent enlist in the military. About 1.2 million of these youth have experienced the deployment of a parent. Multiple and prolonged deployments and exposure to veteran trauma disrupt family relationships and financial stability. The deployment cycle also effects the mental health and well-being of service members and left-behind caregivers and children. Indeed, the caregivers in particular must cope with emotional stress and may have feelings of social isolation. Even when seeking help, left-behind caregivers may have difficulty locating …

Social Justice And Technocracy: Tracing The Narratives Of Inclusive Education In The United States, Scot Danforth

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Over the past two decades, the percentage of American students with disabilities educated in general classrooms with their nondisabled peers has risen by approximately fifty percent. This gradual but steady policy shift has been driven by two distinct narratives of organisational change. The social justice narrative espouses principles of equality and caring across human differences. The narrative of technocracy creates top-down, administrative pressure through hierarchical systems based on quantitative performance data. This article examines these two primary policy narratives of inclusive education in the United States, exploring the conceptual features of each and initiating an analysis of their application in …

A Forward To The Special Issue On Neoliberalism In Education The Long Road To Redemption: Critical Pedagogy And The Struggle For The Future, Peter Mclaren

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Peter McLaren introduces a special issue of Texas Education Review focused on Neoliberalism in Education by advocating for critical pedagogy in the face of the challenges and harms wrought by American capitalism, politics, and "economic exploitation, racism, homophobia, sexism, imperialism, the coloniality of power and White supremacy".

“Just As Bad As Prisons”: The Challenge Of Dismantling The School-To-Prison Pipeline Through Teacher And Community Education, Quaylan Allen, Kimberly A. White-Smith

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Drawing upon the authors’ experiences working in schools as teachers, teacher educators, researchers, and community members, this study utilizes a Critical Race Theory of education in examining the school-to-prison pipeline for black male students. In doing so, the authors highlight the particular role educators play in the school-to-prison pipeline, focusing particularly on how dispositions toward black males influence educator practices. Recommendations and future directions are provided on how education preparation programs can play a critical role in the transformation of black male schooling.

Education Reform And Potemkin Villages: Expanding Conceptions Of “Data”, Noah Asher Golden

Education Faculty Articles and Research

"I argue that much of the current education reform movement [uses] reductive notions of data to create the appearance of growth as opposed to authentic and sustainable growth in pedagogical practice and outcomes.

Data tell a story. How we select, manage, organize, and report those data influences the story in two ways: (1) it reveals our values and priorities and (2) it has the power to shape, highlight, and/or obscure the knowledge it purports to share. Software and information systems play a central role here as the logic they rely on to structure and use data saturates educational practice (Lynch)."

Comrade Jesus: An Epistolic Manifesto, Peter Mclaren

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Set against the backdrop of the contemporary crisis of capitalism and world-historical events, this article examines the advance of globalized imperialism from the perspective of a Marxist-humanist approach to pedagogy known as “revolutionary critical pedagogy” enriched by liberation theology. It is written as an epistolic manifesto to the transnational capitalist class, demanding that those who willingly serve its interests reconsider their allegiance and calling for a planetary revolution in the way that we both think about capitalism and how education and religion serves to reproduce it at the peril of both students and humanity as a whole.

Effective Professional Development Of Teachers: A Guide To Actualizing Inclusive Schooling, Trisha Sugita

Education Faculty Articles and Research

This article examines how inclusive education activities can be facilitated through coaching as a means of professional development. A review of literature on effective professional development practices is discussed, and a recent study focused on individualized peer coaching is examined.

Cultivating Democracy At One High School Intervention Program For Latinos At Risk Of Dropping Out, Margaret Sauceda Curwen, Keith Howard

Education Faculty Articles and Research

In California, where this study takes place, it is estimated that 85,000 students drop out of high school annually. Consequences are often linked to economic and social issues including long term economic costs to the state and the likelihood of lesser participation in voting and civic engagement (Rumberger, 2012). This account documents one high school’s alternative intervention program that includes online academic credit recovery and socio-emotional guidance leading to graduation for Latino students who are at risk of dropping out. Findings highlight the program’s support for these students in gaining confidence in self, envisioning themselves in the community and, for …

Assessing Intern Impact Factors For Program Evaluation And Improvement, John Brady, Randy T. Busse, Jeanne Anne Carriere, Michael Hass, Kelly S. Kennedy

Education Faculty Articles and Research

We present the results of a program evaluation system for examining school psychology interns' impact on the academic and behavioral functioning of children. Outcome data from a variety of single-case problem-solving interventions conducted from 2008-2012 indicated overall moderate, positive effects. Global supervisor ratings indicated strong perceptions of the interns' positive impact on the children they served.

Forum On Identity, Angela Bilia, Christopher Dean, Judith Hebb, Monica F. Jacobe, Doug Sweet, Sue Doe, Mike Palmquist

English Faculty Articles and Research

The forum contributors draw on their personal experiences and insights to put forth ideas about contingent faculty's relations with other faculty and with the academic institution as a whole.

The Difficulties Of Teaching Non-Western Literature In The United States, Ian Barnard

English Faculty Articles and Research

"My goal in this article is to build on Priya Kandaswamy’s discussion of students’ response to difference in Radical Teacher #80 by unfolding the pitfalls of teaching and responding to “non-Western” literature in the United States as embodied in my own experience teaching non-Western literature to a group of racially and ethnically diverse, mainly working-class students at a large urban comprehensive public university."

Supporting The Literacy Development Of Children Living In Homeless Shelters, Laurie Macgillivray, Amy Lassiter Ardell, Margaret Sauceda Curwen

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Insights into how educators can create greater classroom support for homeless children, particularly in literacy learning and development, are provided in this article.

Disciplining Queer, Ian Barnard

English Faculty Articles and Research

This article analyzes a particular set of disciplinings by students and colleagues that coalesced around my teaching of a university course in ‘Queer Theory.’ I use these regulatory discourses and practices as a springboard to investigate how academic and other disciplines (English, in particular) enable and reproduce certain stylizations, epistemologies, and methodologies, and what they implicitly and violently conceal and demonize; how style functions as politics and what the politics of style are; how queerness—queer inquiry and intervention, queer methodologies and epistemologies, queer activisms and insubordinations—might activate, exacerbate, and expose some of these questions and mechanisms. The form of the …

Issues In-Depth: Advancing Understanding Of Drug Addiction And Treatment, Roxanne Greitz Miller

Education Faculty Articles and Research

While most school districts utilize a drug abuse resistance curriculum, as science teachers, it is our responsibility to understand the science behind drug addiction in order to most effectively educate our students against drug abuse. In the last two decades, increases in scientific technology have permitted significant discoveries surrounding the neurobiology, genetic components, and treatment of drug addition. This article addresses the latest scientific knowledge about drug addition and treatment with information that can be used in the middle school setting, focusing on cocaine addiction to illustrate the points discussed. (Contains 2 online resources.)

Fostering A Healthy Body Image: Prevention And Intervention With Adolescent Eating Disorders, Michelle Giles, Michael Hass

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Eating disorders are among the most frequently seen chronic illnesses found in adolescent females. In this paper, we discuss school-based prevention and intervention efforts that seek to reduce the impact of this serious illness. School counselors play a key role in the prevention of eating disorders and can provide support even when not directly involved in psychological or medical treatment. Because of their ability to play a leadership role in school-based prevention of eating disorders, school counselors are essential in facilitating a collaborative approach to the prevention of and intervention in eating disorders and their associated risk factors.

2006 Apsa Teaching And Learning Conference Track Summaries, Gordon Babst, Denise Degarmo, Chris Harth, Bob Reinalda, Amy Cabrera Rasmussen, Reilly Hirst, Anas Malik, Ange-Marie Hancock

Political Science Faculty Articles and Research

The 3rd Annual APSA Conference on Teaching and Learning in Political Science hosted over 300 participants in lively discussions of trends, techniques, and models in teaching in political science. Held in downtown Washington, D.C. on February 18-20, the Conference was organized as a workshop-based forum to develop models of teaching and learning as well as to discuss broad themes affecting political science education today. Joining the discussion, APSA President Ira Katznelson (Columbia University) and keynote speaker Thomas E. Cronin (Colorado College) shared their thoughts on teaching and learning in the discipline.

Time To Make History, Time To Educate Women: A Narrative Of The Life And Work Of Christiana Thorpe Of Sierra Leone, Whitney Mcintyre Miller

Education Faculty Articles and Research

An examination of the life of Christiana Thorpe, a former nun from Sierra Leone who worked to improve education for girls and served as the only woman in a cabinet of nineteen members (as Minister of Education), then worked with the United Nations Development Programme and UNESCO amidst war and rebellion in her country.

Reducing Aversive Interactions With Troubled Students, Michael Hass, Perry D. Passaro, Amy N. Smith

Education Faculty Articles and Research

"This paper is about the impact of staff in-service education on the quality of interactions between staff and students at an educational facility for at-risk youth operated by the Orange County Department of Education. Data on the use of punitive behavior management techniques was gathered before, during, and after staff training in the use of more positive approaches to responding to disruptive behavior. Staff members use of punitive techniques as physical restraint and suspensions was greatly reduced following the training."

Antihomophobic Pedagogy: Some Suggestions For Teachers, Ian Barnard

English Faculty Articles and Research

Too often as teachers we feel that we are doing the right thing by assigning our students "open-ended" essay topics or by inviting students to argue "both" sides of a controversial current event. The ideologies and institutions of liberal pluralism tell us that this is the way to promote "free speech," "democratic" argument, etc. But these kinds of topics and discussions have the effect of privileging dominant power relations and of further silencing our queer students. For example, if we ask our students to debate whether homosexuality is "wrong" or not, we are expecting our queer students to justify their …

Critical Literacy And Postcolonial Praxis: A Freirian Perspective, Peter Mclaren

Education Faculty Articles and Research

"This essay examines the relationship among language, experience, and historical agency. It does so in the context of recent work in critical literacy and critical pedagogy. My discussion takes its bearings from the work of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, described in a recent interview with Carlos Alberto Torres as "the prime 'animateur' for pedagogical innovation and change in the second half of this century" (12). In part this essay stands as a poststructuralist and postcolonialist rereading of Freire that, while to a certain extent "reinventing" his work in light of perspectives selectively culled from contemporary social theory, attempts to remain …

Classrooms As Socialization Agents: The Three R'S And Beyond, Eva Weisz, Barry Kanpol

Education Faculty Articles and Research

The conceptualization of curriculum as more than a document, specifically, as an active negotiation and construction of knowledge, was explored in two different studies as a first step toward understanding curriculum in practice. In particular, the studies explored the "social process curriculum" which was embedded in the enacted curriculum in the classrooms. Findings showed that the enacted curriculum was comprised of many elements, i.e., a pragmatic, unofficial, masked, social, and hidden curriculum. Each of these types of enacted curriculum were interwoven within the enacted curriculum, and were socializing agents which conveyed norms, behaviors, values and meanings to students.

Critical Pedagogy And The Postmodern Challenge: Toward A Critical Postmodernist Pedagogy Of Liberation, Peter Mclaren, Rhonda Hammer

Education Faculty Articles and Research

"Work within the field of critical pedagogy is currently being undertaken in the United States and Canada during what we consider a precipitous and precarious time. The present historical juncture may be singled out as a moment of particular urgency and importance for the future of democracy as we bear witness to two conflicting potentialities which manifest themselves in the struggle on an increasing worldwide basis between democratic forms of social life and those which can be labelled totalitarian and autocratic. A significant dimension of this crisis involves the politics of meaning and representation. We call attention to the present …