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Full-Text Articles in Education

Toward Resonant, Imaginative Experiences In Ecological And Democratic Education. A Response To "Imagination And Experience: An Integrative Framework", Michael Derby, Sean Blenkinsop, John Telford, Laura Piersol, Michael Caulkins Oct 2013

Toward Resonant, Imaginative Experiences In Ecological And Democratic Education. A Response To "Imagination And Experience: An Integrative Framework", Michael Derby, Sean Blenkinsop, John Telford, Laura Piersol, Michael Caulkins

Democracy and Education

In this response to Fettes's "Imagination and Experience," the authors further consider the varieties of educational experience that inspire ecological flourishing and a living democracy. The essential interconnectedness of encounter-driven and language-driven ways of knowing are explored with particular reference to the authors' involvement in a research project at an innovative elementary school in British Columbia, Canada.


Social Justice, Deferred Complicity, And The Moral Plight Of The Wealthy, Rubén A. Gaztambide-Fernández, Adam Howard Mar 2013

Social Justice, Deferred Complicity, And The Moral Plight Of The Wealthy, Rubén A. Gaztambide-Fernández, Adam Howard

Democracy and Education

Faced with the facts of economic inequality, the wealthy are confronted with a particular set of moral, social, and political questions, not least of which is the question of how to preserve a sense of being a “good” human being. In the case of justifying privilege, the problem becomes how to position oneself as being uniquely able to enact a superior moral character. In this response to Swalwell’s article, we argue that her data show how being good and having moral standing is a social outcome that is premised on the unequally distributed ability to do certain things, to enact …


“With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility”: Privileged Students’ Conceptions Of Justice-Oriented Citizenship, Katy Swalwell Mar 2013

“With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility”: Privileged Students’ Conceptions Of Justice-Oriented Citizenship, Katy Swalwell

Democracy and Education

How do students from privileged communities respond to educational efforts encouraging them to become justice-oriented citizens? Observational and interview data collected during a semester-long case study of eleven high school students in a social studies class at an elite private school reveal four markedly different interpretations of their teacher's call to be justice-oriented citizens. Under Westheimer and Kahne’s (2004) conceptions of citizenship as an analytical frame, only one of these interpretations aligns with the tenets of justice-oriented citizenship and the desired outcomes of social justice pedagogy. Given that all eleven students considered themselves to be justice oriented, these findings reveal …


Appropriate Urban Teaching Philosophies. A Book Review Of Sketches In Democracy: Notes From An Urban Classroom, Kirstin C. Busch Mar 2013

Appropriate Urban Teaching Philosophies. A Book Review Of Sketches In Democracy: Notes From An Urban Classroom, Kirstin C. Busch

Democracy and Education

This is a book review for Sketches in Democracy: Notes from an Urban Classroom written by Lisa DeLorenzo, a professor of music education at Montclair State University. DeLorenzo took an extraordinary leap of faith by using her sabbatical year to teach for the very first time within an urban school setting. Her recognition of her limitations in preparing preservice teachers for an urban school environment without herself having had that experience speaks volumes of her reflective capabilities, which she also employed in writing this thought-provoking analytical narrative of her experience teaching in a newly fledged charter conceived as a democratic …


Educating For A Critical Democracy: Civic Participation Reimagined In The Council Of Youth Research, Nicole Mirra, Ernest D. Morrell, Ebony Cain, D'Artagnan Scorza, Arlene Ford Mar 2013

Educating For A Critical Democracy: Civic Participation Reimagined In The Council Of Youth Research, Nicole Mirra, Ernest D. Morrell, Ebony Cain, D'Artagnan Scorza, Arlene Ford

Democracy and Education

This article explores civic learning, civic participation, and the development of civic agency within the Council of Youth Research (the Council), a program that engages high school students in youth participatory action research projects that challenge school inequalities and mobilize others in pursuit of educational justice. We critique the neoliberal view of democracy that dominates in the existing research, policy, and practice around urban school reform and civic education and instead turn to evidence from social movements and critical social theory as a foundation for a reimagined, more robust vision of critical democracy. Through our analysis of the activities that …


Pushing The Boundaries: What Youth Organizers At Boston's Hyde Square Task Force Have To Teach Us About Civic Engagement, Meredith L. Mira Mar 2013

Pushing The Boundaries: What Youth Organizers At Boston's Hyde Square Task Force Have To Teach Us About Civic Engagement, Meredith L. Mira

Democracy and Education

Across the United States, researchers and youth workers alike have identified an increasing number of civically engaged youth who are organizing to improve their communities and schools. By taking an action-oriented approach, these youth are speaking back to the notion that they are uninvolved in society. This interview-based study explores the meaning-making experiences of youth organizers at Boston’s Hyde Square Task Force (HSTF) to better understand how they engage. Findings suggest that HSTF is engaging two broad groups of youth by focusing on both their personal development and their sense of community awareness. The study introduces an organizing model of …


Educational Leadership Or Followership?, David Gabbard Feb 2013

Educational Leadership Or Followership?, David Gabbard

Democracy and Education

Opponents of the neoliberal privatization of schools must be cautious in formulating their opposition so as not to situate themselves as the defenders of an otherwise indefensible status quo. Though we might expect professors in traditional university-based educational-leadership programs to protect their institutional self-interests and their traditional monopoly on the preparation of school leaders against the challenge presented by Eli Broad’s Superintendents Academy, do we know for a fact that the curriculum of Broad’s Academy differs significantly from their own programs? It would be hard for us to name very many professors who have defended those programs as bastions of …


Imagination And Experience: An Integrative Framework, Mark Fettes Feb 2013

Imagination And Experience: An Integrative Framework, Mark Fettes

Democracy and Education

Three variations of experience identified in the educational literature entail different ways of thinking about and developing learners’ imaginations. The relationship between these different imaginative modes resembles shifts between different kinds of understanding in Kieran Egan’s theory of imaginative development. From this theoretical collision, a new framework emerges that gives greater weight to the connections between experience and imagination, and that may help to guide new forms of democratic educational practice.


Let’S Produce Culturally Responsive Pedagogues On Deck. A Response To "There Is No Culturally Responsive Teaching Spoken Here: A Critical Race Perspective", Christopher C. Jett Nov 2012

Let’S Produce Culturally Responsive Pedagogues On Deck. A Response To "There Is No Culturally Responsive Teaching Spoken Here: A Critical Race Perspective", Christopher C. Jett

Democracy and Education

In this response, I extend the conversation started by Hayes and Juárez (2012) by highlighting how culturally responsive teaching is spoken in one teacher education program where I worked and served in the preparation of middle-level teachers. I also share my reflections concerning this idea and pose questions for critical thought, dialogue, and action. Finally, I challenge teacher-educators to speak, enact, and work to produce culturally responsive teaching/teachers in their teacher preparation programs.


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 …


It’S More Than Just Music: A Review Of Urban Science Education For The Hip-Hop Generation, Jose M. Rios Feb 2012

It’S More Than Just Music: A Review Of Urban Science Education For The Hip-Hop Generation, Jose M. Rios

Democracy and Education

A review of the book Urban Science Education for the Hip-Hop Generation, by Christopher Emdin (Sense Publishing, 2010).


Schools/Citizen Science. A Response To "The Future Of Citizen Science", Matthew Weinstein Feb 2012

Schools/Citizen Science. A Response To "The Future Of Citizen Science", Matthew Weinstein

Democracy and Education

This paper builds on Mueller, Tippins, and Bryan's paper to ask how neoliberal restructuring impacts the form of appropriate and possible democratic science/education. It examines the compatibilities between antidemocratic tendencies of current schooling and common forms citizen science. It also clarifies several details regarding the street-medic movement. The paper suggests that distinguishing between democracy as participation and democracy as opposition would help clarify the appropriate forms, limits, and possibilities of democratic forms of science in schooling.


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 …


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 …


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 …