Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Education Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 31 - 56 of 56

Full-Text Articles in Education

Neoliberal Ideology And Democratic Learning. A Response To "Challenging Freedom: Neoliberalism And The Erosion Of Democratic Education", Emery James Hyslop-Margison, Andrés Ramírez May 2016

Neoliberal Ideology And Democratic Learning. A Response To "Challenging Freedom: Neoliberalism And The Erosion Of Democratic Education", Emery James Hyslop-Margison, Andrés Ramírez

Democracy and Education

In "Challenging Freedom: Neoliberalism and the Erosion of Democratic Education," the author suggests that the presumed decline of democratic learning in public schooling follows from two primary forces: (a) the metaphysical implications of Cartesian psychophysical dualism that support an ontological understanding of the self as distinct from social influence and (b) a corresponding concept of freedom emerging from this ontology that exonerates individuals from any meaningful level of social moral responsibility. Although we agree in large part with the general argument advanced in the essay, there are some theoretical and historical gaps that we attempt to bridge in this response. …


Necessary But Not Sufficient: Deweyan Dialogue And The Demands Of Critical Citizenship. A Book Review Of The Political Classroom: Evidence And Ethics In Democratic Education, Joseph C. Wegwert Nov 2015

Necessary But Not Sufficient: Deweyan Dialogue And The Demands Of Critical Citizenship. A Book Review Of The Political Classroom: Evidence And Ethics In Democratic Education, Joseph C. Wegwert

Democracy and Education

This is a book review of The Political Classroom: Evidence and Ethics in Democratic Education, by Hess and McAvoy.


"How To Be Nice And Get What You Want": Structural Referents Of "Self" And "Other" In Experiential Education As (Un)Democratic Practice, Franklin Vernon Nov 2015

"How To Be Nice And Get What You Want": Structural Referents Of "Self" And "Other" In Experiential Education As (Un)Democratic Practice, Franklin Vernon

Democracy and Education

This critical ethnography explores a social justice program utilizing nontraditional, democratic, "experiential" education practices. The author posits a historical legacy of pedagogy of self obscures its emancipatory, democratic potential while simultaneously expanding on contemporary discourses of self and other as aspects of the educational setting. Students' labors to reference and enact oppressive, capitalistic idealizations of either self or other problematizes pragmatic theories of self, and the author draws upon critical pragmatism to reposition self and other as aspects of pedagogy and curriculum in democratic education.


The Cake Is A Lie. A Book Review Of The Failure Of Corporate School Reform, Amy Rector Aranda Apr 2015

The Cake Is A Lie. A Book Review Of The Failure Of Corporate School Reform, Amy Rector Aranda

Democracy and Education

This is a book review of The Failure of Corporate School Reform by Kenneth J. Saltman.


Interrogating The Relationship Between Schools And Society. A Book Review Of Can Education Change Society?, Wayne Au Apr 2015

Interrogating The Relationship Between Schools And Society. A Book Review Of Can Education Change Society?, Wayne Au

Democracy and Education

This reviewer found Can Education Change Society? a typical Apple text, far-ranging in terms of scope and example and theoretically and conceptually ambitious.


Media Literacy For The 21st Century. A Response To "The Need For Media Education In Democratic Education", Peter Levine Apr 2015

Media Literacy For The 21st Century. A Response To "The Need For Media Education In Democratic Education", Peter Levine

Democracy and Education

We cannot pretend to educate young people for citizenship and political participation without teaching them to understand and use the new media, which are essential means of expressing ideas, forming public opinions, and building institutions and movements. But the challenge of media literacy education is serious. Students need advanced and constantly changing skills to be effective online. They must understand the relationship between the new media and social and political institutions, a topic that is little understood by even the most advanced social theorists. And they must develop motivations to use digital media for civic purposes, when no major institutions …


Media And Democracy. A Response To "The Need For Media Education In Democratic Education", Lance E. Mason Apr 2015

Media And Democracy. A Response To "The Need For Media Education In Democratic Education", Lance E. Mason

Democracy and Education

This response supports Stoddard’s (2014) assertion that media education should be considered a crucial factor of democratic education and offers both extensions and cautions related to that end. Extensions include practical suggestions for studying the non-neutrality of technology. The author also cautions educators that if media education and democratic education are to be productively merged, a more substantive consideration of the relationship between digital technologies and dispositional factors is warranted.


Becoming A Social Justice Educator: Emerging From The Pits Of Whiteness Into The Light Of Love. A Response To "Respect The Differences? Challenging The Common Guidelines In Social Justice Education, Kay F. Fujiyoshi Apr 2015

Becoming A Social Justice Educator: Emerging From The Pits Of Whiteness Into The Light Of Love. A Response To "Respect The Differences? Challenging The Common Guidelines In Social Justice Education, Kay F. Fujiyoshi

Democracy and Education

This paper addresses the limitations of social justice in institutional spaces and in rhetoric. I write in the form of a quest narrative to describe the lessons I learned from a brief sojourn in a temporary position in an urban teacher education program with a social justice focus and at a nonprofit organization with other social justice workers. My quest entails a retelling of encounters with Whiteness, the challenges of engaging social justice as a process that pushes beyond conversation, and the lessons I took away from my own sense-making of the contradictions in social justice work.


Exploring The Implications Of Citizenship-As-Equality In Critical Citizenship Education. A Response To "The Practice Of Equality: A Critical Understanding Of Democratic Citizenship Education", Michalinos Zembylas Apr 2015

Exploring The Implications Of Citizenship-As-Equality In Critical Citizenship Education. A Response To "The Practice Of Equality: A Critical Understanding Of Democratic Citizenship Education", Michalinos Zembylas

Democracy and Education

This is a response to Ruitenberg’s (2015) argument that citizenship-as-equality should be the focus of citizenship education. My aim in the response is to offer clarifying comments and questions and suggest further ideas for expanding her analysis, highlighting in particular two perspectives that deserve more attention: first, the role of emotions in the constitution of political subjectification and the practice of equality; second, the possible openings that might be created when the notion of citizenship-as-equality is utilized as a point of departure to instill more criticality in students’ understandings of and feelings about citizenship.


The Practice Of Equality: A Critical Understanding Of Democratic Citizenship Education, Claudia W. Ruitenberg Apr 2015

The Practice Of Equality: A Critical Understanding Of Democratic Citizenship Education, Claudia W. Ruitenberg

Democracy and Education

This essay proposes a conception of citizenship that highlights its political aspects. Based on the work of Balibar, Rancière, and Biesta, it is argued that democratic citizenship education must include the education of equality. This means that students must have the opportunity to experience not only the membership aspect of citizenship that subjects them to the state but also the democratic aspect of citizenship that positions them as equals to each other and capable of political intervention. The increasing emphasis in state policies on the membership aspect of citizenship must be counterbalanced by an emphasis in education on the democratic …


A Testimony Of Hope. A Book Review Of Critical Consciousness In Curricular Research, Audrey Lingley Sep 2014

A Testimony Of Hope. A Book Review Of Critical Consciousness In Curricular Research, Audrey Lingley

Democracy and Education

The anthology Critical Consciousness in Curricular Research: Evidence from the Field (William-White, Muccular, D., Muccular, G., & Brown, 2013) contains a multilogical collection of strategies for establishing curriculum work as an integral part of what it means to be a teacher. Although the contributors represent a diverse range of backgrounds, perspectives, and years in education, a common manifesto emerges: Curriculum inquiry is a pathway for the enactment of democratic pedagogy and enfranchisement of marginalized students (and teachers). The editors provide a vibrant and engaging testimony of hope with which to revitalize the notion of curriculum work as part of what …


Scrutiny Instead Of Silence. A Response To "Respect Differences? Challenging Common Guidelines In Social Justice Education", Barbara A. Peterson Dr. Sep 2014

Scrutiny Instead Of Silence. A Response To "Respect Differences? Challenging Common Guidelines In Social Justice Education", Barbara A. Peterson Dr.

Democracy and Education

Sensoy and DiAngelo (2014) argue for alternative behavioral guidelines than those currently being used in many social justice courses. Their alternative is to silence or constrain privileged voices so that marginalized voices have ample space to be heard and taken seriously. This raises the concern that silencing any group of persons runs too great a risk of alienating them to the point where their mistrust of the “other” is exacerbated rather than assuaged. This response suggests that, instead of silencing or even constraining privileged voices in the classroom, we may want to move toward developing in students the attitude that …


Moving Toward Equitable, Accessible, And Relevant Mathematics For All. A Book Review Of Rethinking Mathematics: Teaching Social Justice By The Numbers, Lauren Provost Apr 2014

Moving Toward Equitable, Accessible, And Relevant Mathematics For All. A Book Review Of Rethinking Mathematics: Teaching Social Justice By The Numbers, Lauren Provost

Democracy and Education

A book review of Rethinking Mathematics: Teaching Social Justice by the Numbers, edited by Eric Gutstein and Bob Peterson.


Nonviolent Action As A Necessary Component In Educating For Democracy, Barbara A. Peterson Apr 2014

Nonviolent Action As A Necessary Component In Educating For Democracy, Barbara A. Peterson

Democracy and Education

Educating for democracy, seen within a liberal democratic framework, requires that students develop the requisite knowledge and skills to recognize injustice and work effectively to oppose it. Stitzlein’s notion of dissent is examined in conjunction with Kahne and Westheimer’s argument for teaching democratic capacities by actively engaging students in addressing real world problem. This paper further suggests that for active dissent to lead to real change, we must extend our notion of dissent to include the knowledge and skills to influence the balance of power. Teaching students for democracy requires teaching them theory, history, and techniques of nonviolent action so …


A Book Review Of Teaching About Hegemony: Race, Class, And Democracy In The 21st Century, Jennifer A. Tupper Dr. Aug 2012

A Book Review Of Teaching About Hegemony: Race, Class, And Democracy In The 21st Century, Jennifer A. Tupper Dr.

Democracy and Education

A review of the book Teaching About Hegemony: Race, Class and Democracy in the 21st Century, by Paul Orlowski (Springer, 2011).


A Book Review Of Healing The Heart Of Democracy: The Courage To Create A Politics Worthy Of The Human Spirit, Bruce L. Mallory Aug 2012

A Book Review Of Healing The Heart Of Democracy: The Courage To Create A Politics Worthy Of The Human Spirit, Bruce L. Mallory

Democracy and Education

A review of the book Healing the Heart of Democracy: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit, by Parker J. Palmer (Jossey-Bass, 2011).


Heeding Woolf’S Great Teacher: Uncovering And Defusing An Education In “Unreal Loyalties”, Stacy Otto Aug 2012

Heeding Woolf’S Great Teacher: Uncovering And Defusing An Education In “Unreal Loyalties”, Stacy Otto

Democracy and Education

In her 1938 epistolary novel and educational treatise, Three Guineas, Virginia Woolf discusses “freedom from unreal loyalties” as key to educating for peace rather than for war, as was the concern in Woolf’s time and remarkably remains of serious concern seventy-odd years later. This essay analyzes how modern-day, post-9/11 U.S. public education is influenced by a whole range of unreal loyalties and, in fact, how we as educators reify and reinscribe these. The argument uses Woolf’s text as a theoretical frame to analyze select aspects of U.S. public education, concluding with an exploration of the meaning and value of …


Case Study Of A Participatory Health-Promotion Intervention In School, Venka Simovska Feb 2012

Case Study Of A Participatory Health-Promotion Intervention In School, Venka Simovska

Democracy and Education

This article discusses the findings from a case study focusing on processes involving pupils to bring about health-promotion changes. The study is related to an EU intervention project aiming to promote health and well-being among children (4–16 years). Qualitative research was carried out in a school in the Netherlands. Data sources include project documents, interviews, and observations. Thematic analysis was carried out combining the different data sources. The case study shows that, if given sufficient guidance, children can act as agents of health-promoting changes. The main arena for youth influence was the pupil council. Pupils were meaningfully involved in two …


There Is No Culturally Responsive Teaching Spoken Here: A Critical Race Perspective, Cleveland Hayes, Brenda Juarez Feb 2012

There Is No Culturally Responsive Teaching Spoken Here: A Critical Race Perspective, Cleveland Hayes, Brenda Juarez

Democracy and Education

In this article, we are concerned with White racial domination as a process that occurs in teacher education and the ways it operates to hinder the preparation of teachers to effectively teach all students. Our purpose is to identify and highlight moments within processes of White racial domination when individuals and groups have and make choices to support rather than to challenge White supremacy. By highlighting and critically examining moments when White racial domination has been instantiated and recreated within our own experiences, we attempt to open up a venue for imagining and re-creating teacher education in ways that are …


Feel Free To Change Your Mind. A Response To "The Potential For Deliberative Democratic Civic Education", Walter Parker Oct 2011

Feel Free To Change Your Mind. A Response To "The Potential For Deliberative Democratic Civic Education", Walter Parker

Democracy and Education

Walter Parker responds to Hanson and Howe's article, extending their argument to everyday classroom practice. He focuses on a popular learning activity called Structured Academic Controversy (SAC). SAC is pertinent not only to civic learning objectives but also to traditional academic-content objectives. SAC is at once a discourse structure, a participation structure, and an instructional procedure; and it centers on Hanson and Howe’s autonomy-building fulcrum—exchanging reasons. At a key moment in SAC, students are invited to step out of an assigned role and to form their “own” position on the issue. Parker argues that SAC is one way to mobilize …


The Courage To Critique Policies And Practices From Within: Youth Participatory Action Research As Critical Policy Analysis. A Response To “Buscando La Libertad: Latino Youths In Search Of Freedom In School”, Anjale Welton Apr 2011

The Courage To Critique Policies And Practices From Within: Youth Participatory Action Research As Critical Policy Analysis. A Response To “Buscando La Libertad: Latino Youths In Search Of Freedom In School”, Anjale Welton

Democracy and Education

This response to “Buscando la Libertad: Latino Youths in Search of Freedom in School” by Jason G. Irizarry demonstrates how youth participatory action research (YPAR) as an instrument of subverting oppressive school policies and structures is a form of critical policy analysis (CPA). As an evolving method, CPA acknowledges the absent voices in policy, questions policy inequities, fosters empowerment, and influences policy. Youths who engage in YPAR, as demonstrated by Project FUERTE, have the courage to critique school policies that have the power to alter their educational trajectories, which offers more hope for change than scholarly elites who critique policies …


Confronting Power: Success Isn’T Everything—But It’S Not Nothing Either. A Response To “Beyond The Catch-22 Of School-Based Social Action Programs: Toward A More Pragmatic Approach For Dealing With Power”, Joel Westheimer Apr 2011

Confronting Power: Success Isn’T Everything—But It’S Not Nothing Either. A Response To “Beyond The Catch-22 Of School-Based Social Action Programs: Toward A More Pragmatic Approach For Dealing With Power”, Joel Westheimer

Democracy and Education

Fehrman and Schutz contend that the fine balance between having students experience real-world obstacles to social change and having them learn how to navigate around those obstacles can be achieved by having adults both pre-select community action projects that are both possible and meaningful to ensure a modicum of success, and jump in and redirect wayward efforts when necessary to get them back on a trajectory aimed at a positive outcome. I agree. I also suggest that other factors are significant as well, namely the purposeful nurturing of a sense of community and hopefulness. Finally, I point out that adult …


Students Have Their Own Minds. A Response To “Beyond The Catch-22 Of School-Based Social Action Programs: Toward A More Pragmatic Approach For Dealing With Power”, Matthew Goldwasser Apr 2011

Students Have Their Own Minds. A Response To “Beyond The Catch-22 Of School-Based Social Action Programs: Toward A More Pragmatic Approach For Dealing With Power”, Matthew Goldwasser

Democracy and Education

In response to the authors’ work on finding a more pragmatic approach to dealing with power, this commentary calls into question the possibility of a preestablished agenda by the researchers, who struggled to engage high school students. There might have been a case of overly ambitious expectations at work; also, the authors confess to being in the school only once a week and that their students were themselves struggling to find their place in a new charter school with an emphasis on social action. This response challenges the authors to reexamine their wish to engage students with institutional power by …


Buscando La Libertad: Latino Youths In Search Of Freedom In School, Jason Irizarry Apr 2011

Buscando La Libertad: Latino Youths In Search Of Freedom In School, Jason Irizarry

Democracy and Education

Drawing from a two-year ethnographic study of Latino high school students engaged in youth participatory action research (YPAR), this article describes students’ quest for freedom in schools, locating their struggle within a larger effort to realize the democratic ideals of public schooling. Using Latino/a Critical Race Theory as a theoretical lens, the author demonstrates how popular discourse around the “achievement gap” often obscures the oppressive policies and practices implemented by educators that limit freedoms necessary for educational and personal development and profoundly influence the identities and life trajectories of Latino youth. The article concludes with an exploration of YPAR as …


Beyond The Catch-22 Of School-Based Social Action Programs: Toward A More Pragmatic Approach For Dealing With Power, Darwyn Fehrman, Aaron Schutz Apr 2011

Beyond The Catch-22 Of School-Based Social Action Programs: Toward A More Pragmatic Approach For Dealing With Power, Darwyn Fehrman, Aaron Schutz

Democracy and Education

This study examines a two-year effort to engage groups of inner-city students in community engagement projects at Social Action Charter High School, SACHS, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In this project, graduate student volunteers coached small groups of students working on community change projects, collecting data on what happened over time. Kahne and Westheimer (2006) identified a key challenge to projects of this kind. On the one hand, social action projects seem able to enhance students’ belief in their own capacity to solve community problems only if adult allies make sure the students do not encounter any significant barriers to success, although …


Schooling For Democracy, Nel Noddings Apr 2011

Schooling For Democracy, Nel Noddings

Democracy and Education

There is a widespread movement today to prepare all students for college, and it is promoted in the name of democracy. I argue here that such a move actually puts our democracy at risk by forcing students into programs that do not interest them and depriving them of courses at which they might succeed. We risk losing the vision of democracy that respects every form of honest work and cultivates a deep appreciation of interdependence.