Education Commons^™

If I Knew Then What I Do Now: Fostering Pre-Service Teachers’ Capacity To Promote Expansive And Critical Conversations With Children’S Literature, Stephen Adam Crawley

Occasional Paper Series

In this article, I reflect on my practices as a teacher educator and respond to the following questions: How do I foster the capacity of pre-service teachers to use children’s literature to promote expansive and critical conversations in the classroom? How do pre-service teachers report their stances and sense of preparedness when reflecting on the course? To address these questions, I share two strategies I employed in my undergraduate course for elementary education majors: 1) emphasizing children's literature as windows and mirrors and 2) considering stakeholder responses. For each strategy, I include preservice teachers’ (PTs’) statements that reflect how the …

Critical Intellectuals In Postdigital Times, Petar Jandrić, Peter Mclaren

Education Faculty Articles and Research

This article starts with a brief analysis of what it means to be an intellectual within the US tradition of critical pedagogy. Pointing toward important socio-technological transformations which have taken place in the past few decades, the article situates the concept of the intellectual into the contemporary postdigital context. The article looks into two main areas of intellectual work which seem to have undergone significant transformations—automation and post-truth. It develops possible responses to recent challenges in these areas and shows that contemporary intellectuals working in the tradition of critical pedagogy need to take technology seriously. Heading toward the conclusion, the …

Opening Up Information Literacy: Empowering Students Through Open Pedagogy, Erin Fields, Adair Harper

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Innovative Pedagogy

Open pedagogy and critical information literacy are influenced by critical pedagogy, which advocates for a disruption of information authority and privilege in the classroom and the creation of an environment that empowers students to be equal participants in their own learning. With the open education movement and the affordances of networked technologies, open pedagogy has the potential to enable students to be active co-creators of knowledge, engaging in information literacy practices of finding, analyzing, and sharing knowledge. Moving beyond an individualistic skills-based approach to information literacy, open pedagogy provides students with opportunities to not only reflect on their understanding of …

Authoring Dis/Ability Identities Mapping The Role Of Ableism In Teacher Candidate Identity Construction, Molly B. Siuty, Margaret R. Beneke

Curriculum and Instruction Faculty Publications and Presentations

Ableism, or the belief that abled ways of being and knowing are superior, perpetuates deficit views of ability differences, and constructs dis/ability as a problem in need of remediation so that individuals achieve “normalcy.” Ableism’s entrenched pervasiveness in education systems can be a significant barrier in teacher education when preparing critical educators who can work towards radical forms of dis/ability justice. In this paper, we argue that dis/abled teacher candidates can afford particular insight into the ways in which ableism operates in educational institutions and that dis/ability should be considered an asset to inclusive and socially just teacher preparation. Using …

Supporting Adolescent Mental Health Within School Culture And Curricula: Inviting Adolescents To Utah's Mental Health Conversation, Diana West

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Utah is facing a mental health crisis. Between 2011 and 2017, teen suicides nearly tripled in Utah and had become the leading cause of death for children ages 10-17. Educators and policymakers are scrambling to provide students with mental health supports in schools, but an incomplete understanding of the challenges that students face can make it difficult to meet their needs. Each year state agencies ratchet up awareness, funding, and the determination to support mental health initiatives, but each year adolescent mental health in Utah becomes more precarious. The purpose of this study is to change the conversation by inviting …

Critical (En)Counters: A Girouxean Exploration Of Contingent Faculties’ Narratives On Laboring For Latinx Students In The Corporate University Using Critical Dialogue, Krystal Amaril Medrano

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the experiences of contingent faculty within the College of Education at a Hispanic Serving Institute on the Texas-Mexico border. This study makes use of a critical Girouxean lens of neoliberalism to explore both the classroom and work experiences of contingent faculty as they navigate the hopelessness of the corporate university. Tethered still to the hope of critical pedagogy and dialogue, I rely on dialogic interviewing and story circle protocol to create dialogic experiences in which our individual and joint narratives, including my own stories, set off an ongoing dialogue that will extend beyond this study to the …

“In Our Very Flesh, (R)Evolution”: An Exploration Of Secondary Education Teachers, Otherness, And Embodiment, Ryan Ambuter

Doctoral Dissertations

In education, the proliferation of a mind/body dualism leaves the pedagogy of the body undertheorized, and its impact on education disregarded. While there is not an absence of research on the body within the field of education, what exists is limited in scope. Little has been written about the connections between teachers’ bodies, pedagogy, and politics at the level of secondary education. This research specifically focuses on teachers who are visibly other, critically conscious of their bodies, and find power in their difference. The purpose of this study is to make meaning of the stories, experiences, and potential of teachers …

The Collective Contemplation: How A Global Pandemic Offers An Invitation To Dance With The Abundant Divine, Skyler Pestle

Leadership for Sustainability Education Comprehensive Papers

Going into 2020, our world was already facing a multitude of crises to be critically concerned about, such as climate change, growing income inequality, and normalized political exploitation of the vulnerable. All of this is occurring in the age of information which makes for a quick descent into despair, as the scary news fills up our screens. Due to shelter in place orders, many individuals are stuck at home, alone, without a job, and bombarded with news of the carnage and chaos. Collectively, our psyches are experiencing a magnitude of trauma. A sustainable leader who radiates the radical compassion needed …

Critical Pedagogy In The Intercultural Classroom: The Influence Of Values On Participatory Patterns In The Classroom, Misheel Mandalsaikhan

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This thesis explores the influence of values on students’ participatory patterns within higher education settings and considers the importance of value exploration in art therapy education. Based on the theory of critical pedagogy by Paulo Freire, the influence of historically oppressive pedagogical practices on international and minority students is examined. Drawing on literature that identifies factors in students’ participatory patterns, students’ participatory patterns were found to be determined by values more than race or ethnicity. Though broader values exist within racial and ethnic groups, the reduction of ethnic and racial groups to singular values strips individuals of their unique and …

Student Agency And Collective Bootstrapping In Integrated Career And Technical Education: A Photovoice Project, Panagiota Athinelis

Educational Studies Dissertations

Secondary Career and Technical Education (CTE) provides students with a full education in academic areas as well as a career area of interest, allowing students to apply their school-based learning in the real world through work-based learning. At the same time, urban CTE adolescents have historically been marginalized and placed in a deficit model. The purpose of this qualitative study was to uncover the ways in which student agency is co-created in an urban, transdisciplinary CTE high school program, as well as to identify the institutional systems and structures that support or hinder the development of student agency.

Eight students …

Promoting Learner Agency Through Critical Pedagogy In The English Language Classroom, Susan Zyphur

School of Leadership and Education Sciences: Student Scholarship

In this self-study action research project, I explored how students exercised agency and how it may be affected by a critical pedagogy approach in a community college English as a Second Language (ESL) setting. The participants were adults enrolled in an advanced ESL course in a community college in the greater San Diego area. Students engaged in three dialogic circles as part of a needs assessment dialogue and two successive critical pedagogy dialogues. Data were collected using a classroom observation protocol (supported by audio recordings of the dialogues), student writings in response to journal prompts, and an analytic journal which …

Performative Possibilities In The Development Of Protagonistic Agency Among Graduate Students In China, Yan Wang

Education (PhD) Dissertations

Educational drama is a term that has in recent years achieved a pride of place in the field of arts-based research. During previous centuries, however, drama was considered anathema to formal learning and theaters themselves were considered “sinks of uncleanliness” (Coggin, 1956, p. 38). Only in recent history has educational drama been considered a legitimate means of teaching and learning. While Dorothy Heathcote, Gavin Bolton, Richard Courtney and others have helped to legitimize the fecund role that drama plays in learning, there has, to date, been a dearth of studies utilizing interdisciplinary approaches such as playbuilding (a participatory arts-based research …

Vocal Health Of Choral Singers From Kenya And The United States: Dysphonia And Vocal Fatigue In Relation To Musical Genres, Morgan Jolley Burburan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to investigate the vocal health of choral singers from Kenya and the United States and to determine whether genre (classical choral, traditional Kenya, and Contemporary Commercial Music [CCM]) had any impact on healthy vocal production, particularly as it related to vocal fatigue. Participants were adult singers (N = 94) in two semi-professional choirs, the Nairobi Chamber Chorus (NCC) from Kenya (n = 25) and the Festival Singers of Florida (FSOF) from the United States (n = 69). Singers’ perceived overall vocal health was measured using multiparametric clinical self-reporting instruments and acoustical assessment. Singers’ …

Using A Multiliteracies Approach To Foster Critical And Creative Pedagogies For Adult Learners, Susan M. Holloway, Patricia A. Gouthro

Education Publications

Drawing upon a pilot study and a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight research study to explore how a multiliteracies framework may inform more critical and creative pedagogical approaches for adolescents and adults, this article begins with a brief overview of the literature on multiliteracies and then overviews the methodology used in the two research studies. Although multiliteracies has not been used frequently as a theoretical framework to inform work in adult learning contexts, this article argues that there are many benefits to this approach for adult educators to consider, particularly given the increasing need to attend to …

Open To What? A Critical Evaluation Of Oer Efficacy Studies, Ian Mcdermott

Publications and Research

This selective literature review evaluates open educational resources (OER) efficacy studies through the lens of critical pedagogy. OER have radical potential as transformative tools for critical pedagogy or they can serve as a cost-free version of the status quo, inclined toward propagating austerity. This review analyzes studies published since 2008 with regard to cost, access, pedagogy, commercialization, and labor. These criteria are used to make explicit subjects indirectly addressed, if not ignored completely, in the existing literature. Typically, ample attention is paid to a study’s design and methodology but the underlying institutional infrastructure and decision-making process is unexamined. What emerges …

Popular Education In The Civil Rights Movement: Bridging Depth And Scale, Amanda Altman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis looks at the question of how the direct actions of the civil rights movement worked synergistically with grassroots educational projects like the Citizenship Schools. This thesis makes the case that the lesser-known history of the popular education work of the civil rights movement provides important clues as to why activists were able to organize mass mobilizations and formulate increasingly transformative strategies for change, like the rise of the Freedom Democratic Party. I look at the popular education work of the civil rights movement through an in-depth case study of the Citizenship Schools. The Citizenship Schools were a network …

Teaching And Learning For This Moment: How A Trauma Informed Lens Can Guide Our Praxis, Cinzia Pica-Smith, Christian Scannell

Human Services and Rehabilitation Studies Department Faculty Works

In this time of COVID-19, continued and relentless violence against BIPOC, organized resistance by many young people, and violent institutionalized attempts to suppress resistance, demonstrations and social change movements, what should educators be thinking about as we return to our college classrooms? In this short piece, we share our thinking and experience about our students’ psycho-social needs and our belief that faculty must be focused both on students’ and faculty’s socio-political context and students’ and faculty’s emotional wellbeing as we think about teaching and learning for this moment.

Employing A Visual Representation Technique To Understand Undergraduates’ Perceptions Of Civic Engagement Across Countries, Sharon Feeney, John Hogan

Articles

Purpose – This paper aims to present an interpretation of freehand drawings produced by a sample of final year degree level learners in response to the question: “What is civic engagement”? The aim in using this approach, with final year degree learners from different countries, but pursuing the same degree, was to compare and contrast their understanding of civic engagement.

Design/methodology/approach – Learners completed their drawings and then discussed their drawings in small groups. All of their drawings were initially examined quantitatively before a sample of six drawings were selected for in-depth qualitative examination.

Findings – Using learner-generated drawings enables …

Envisioning Critical Social Entrepreneurship Education: Possibilities, Questions, And Guiding Commitments, Mark Congdon Jr., Liliana Herakova

Communication, Media & The Arts Faculty Publications

Higher education institutions continue to be increasingly interested in examining how social entrepreneurship and community engaged approaches to education can work together. In light of the recent growth and interest in such programs, scholars and educators have called for attention to specific considerations when developing SE and community-based education, which can be summed up in three areas - pedagogy, relationships, and impact. The present essay builds on such propositions, and calls for a critically-orientated approach to SE, grounded in community engagement, collaborative dialogue among diverse voices, and a commitment to transforming oppressive structures

What Factos Shape 21st Century Workplace Learning?, Kathy Harris, Jen Vanek,, Jill Castek, Gloria Jacobs

21CLEO Presentations and Publications

Adult learners take part in many different kinds of learning (in the workplace and beyond) Find out....what opportunities learners are offered and are taking part in. Encourage and Support….sustained participation and connections between and across settings.

Patriotism As Critique: Youth Responses To Teaching About Injustice, Hillary Parkhouse

Teaching and Learning Publications

The view that patriotism is characterized by unquestioning loyalty to one’s country remains common in the United States despite its anti-democratic implications. From this standpoint, classroom discussions of past and present injustices are a threat to patriotism because they raise doubts about national superiority and exceptionality. Through an ethnographic study in two critical, culturally diverse US history classrooms, I investigated students’ attitudes towards their country and the notion of patriotism. As opposed to fomenting disaffection among students, candid discussions of injustices led students to view their teachers and curriculum as more trustworthy than what they had encountered in prior classrooms. …

Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Plan, Ann Curry-Stevens, Jasmin Hunter, Ebony Oldham, Stephen L. Percy, Cece Ridder, Kevin Thomas, Mark Wubbold, Marisa Zapata

Global Diversity and Inclusion Publications and Presentations

Portland State University is situated in the heart of downtown Portland, Multnomah County, Oregon. Multnomah County rests on traditional village sites of the Multnomah, Kathlamet, Clackamas, Bands of Chinook, Tualatin Kalapuya, Molalla and many other Tribes who made their homes along the Columbia River. Multnomah is a band of Chinooks that lived in this area. Portland State University wishes to recognize that since time immemorial these have been the lands of the Indigenous peoples of this region.

Since its inception as Vanport Extension Center (VEC) in 1946, the institution now known as Portland State University has provided a rich learning …

Critical Library Instruction As A Pedagogical Tool, Nicole A. Cooke

Faculty Publications

The opportunity to expand pedagogy is an especially good thing for library educators, particularly when library professionals do not have formal training as teachers and instructors. We have a responsibility to ourselves and our students to grow intellectually and share growth and new knowledge with others. We should be promoting and practicing critical self-reflection and thinking critically about and even critiquing the information we consume and the sources from which it originates. This is an ongoing and iterative process that requires that we consistently read and remain abreast of new and interdisciplinary ideas that can challenge and inform our practice. …

Positionality Of Paraeducators: A Phenomenological Study In A Public School District In The Pacific Northwest, Ann Rene' Flynn

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

Paraeducators play an important role in the classroom supporting students and certificated teachers. However, literature on the actual roles of paraeducators has revealed that paraeducators are rarely included in the teaching team (Patterson, 2006). Paraeducators are frequently asked to perform difficult or unpleasant jobs and may not be recognized as important professionals who support the educational system (Giangreco, Suter, & Doyle, 2010; Lucero, 2010). Surveys and interviews have shown that paraeducators view themselves differently from how coworkers view them (Chopra, Sandoval-Lucero, Aragon, Bernal, De Balderas, & Carroll, 2004; Patterson, 2006). The purpose of this phenomenological study was to gain a …

Schools For Profit Or Schools For Education? A Christian School Principal’S Perspectives, Michael A. Crosby

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a series of speculative essays (Schubert, 1991) that address the forces of neoliberalism on schools today– both public and private. While there have been studies on the detrimental effects of high-stakes testing on public schools (e.g., Au, 2015; Giroux, 2014; Wacquant, 2000) as well as the associated harmful effects of school to prison pipeline (e.g., Saltman, 2016; Taubman, 2009), there remains little research associated with the damaging impacts of neoliberalism on Christian schools. Building upon the theoretical framework of critical pedagogy (e.g., Friere, 1970; Kincheloe, 2008; McLaren, 2015), I undertake a critical examination of neoliberalism’s calculated efforts …

Performing Identities Of The Auditory-Verbal Deaf Students In The Classrooms: A Teacher's Performative Memoir, Tracy Edenfield

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation, that incorporated performative storytelling and dance, is a memoir reflecting over fifty years of my lived experiences related to deafness as a multidimensional illustration that spans from my experience as a young child with a family member affected by Usher’s Syndrome; as an educational sign language interpreter; as a teacher of the deaf (TOD); and as an early intervention auditory-verbal therapist. Theoretically, my dissertation builds upon critical pedagogy (e.g., Baglieri & Shapiro, 2012; Freire, 1970/2009; McLaren & Crawford, 1998) and disability studies (e.g., Davis, 2002; Goodley, 2011; Siebers, 2008; Kitchens, 1998). The physical disability of deafness continues to …

Portland State University: General Education And Equitable Assessment, Rowanna L. Carpenter, Vicki Reitenauer, Aimee Shattuck

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Portland State University is not only Portland, Oregon’s public research university, but a place of innovation and engagement. Portland State offers over 200 degree programs, and is very engaged in community development as it sits in the heart of downtown. Originally founded in 1946 to serve returning World War II veterans, Portland State has “grown into Oregon’s most diverse urban public research university with 26,000 students.” Of the students served, 25% are students with children, 37% are first-generation, 45% receive Pell grants, and 48% are students of color. Espoused values of the university include the promotion of access, inclusion, and …

Foreword: The Dispossessed Majority: Resisting The Second Redemption In América Posfascista (Postfascist America) With Latcrit Scholarship, Community, And Praxis Amidst The Global Pandemic, Sheila I. Velez Martinez

Articles

As LatCrit reaches its twenty-fifth anniversary, we aspire for this symposium Foreword to remind its readers of LatCrit’s foundational propositions and ongoing efforts to cultivate new generations of ethical advocates who can systemically analyze the sociolegal conditions that engender injustice and intervene strategically to help create enduring sociolegal, and cultural, change. Working for lasting social change from an antisubordination perspective enables us to see the myriad laws, regulations, policies, and practices that, by intent or effect, enforce the inferior social status of historically- and contemporarily-oppressed groups. In turn, working with a perspective and principle of antisubordination can inspire us to …