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Full-Text Articles in Education

Critical Democracy Audits. A Response To "Teacher, Researcher, And Accountability Discourses: Creating Space For Democratic Science Teaching Practices In Middle Schools", Kathleen Greene Oct 2013

Critical Democracy Audits. A Response To "Teacher, Researcher, And Accountability Discourses: Creating Space For Democratic Science Teaching Practices In Middle Schools", Kathleen Greene

Democracy and Education

Educators frequently claim that the projects in which they are involved are democratic. However, considering the multiple and often conflicting notions of democracy and democratic education, are there any shared understandings of what either of those notions means? Does the claim that a project is democratic carry with it any shared assumptions, commitments, or obligations? In this response, I extend the conversation started by the authors of that article by proposing a critical democracy audit of their education project, and I offer a preliminary collection of questions, developed from recent literature on democratic education, that might be considered for use …


Teacher, Researcher, And Accountability Discourses: Creating Space For Democratic Science Teaching Practices In Middle Schools, Cory A. Buxton, Shakhnoza Kayumova, Martha Allexsaht-Snider Oct 2013

Teacher, Researcher, And Accountability Discourses: Creating Space For Democratic Science Teaching Practices In Middle Schools, Cory A. Buxton, Shakhnoza Kayumova, Martha Allexsaht-Snider

Democracy and Education

This study explores the role of competing discourses that shape current practices in U.S. schools and how professional development efforts can support teachers and researchers in finding ways to reinsert more democratic processes into their collaborative work. We examine the case of one research and professional development project with the goal of supporting middle school science and ESOL teachers in fostering more meaningful science learning for all their students but especially their English language learners. Using Gee’s notion of big-D discourses and Fairclough’s notion of interdiscursivity, we trace how the Discourse of accountability, the Discourse of science teaching, and the …


This Is What Democracy Looks Like: Art And The Wisconsin Uprising, Kim Cosier Jan 2013

This Is What Democracy Looks Like: Art And The Wisconsin Uprising, Kim Cosier

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

In February of 2011, an enormous popular political movement came to life in Wisconsin. For many people who were engaged in the month-long occupation of the Capitol in Madison, the Wisconsin Uprising was their first experience with direct political action. For the artists who are the focus of this article, taking part in the Wisconsin Uprising seemed like a natural outgrowth of their many years of socially engaged artmaking. In this article, I offer a brief overview of the Wisconsin Uprising followed by a discussion of the contributions of the artists in the protests in the context of their larger …


Craft As Activism, Elizabeth Garber Jan 2013

Craft As Activism, Elizabeth Garber

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

Craft activists work outside the mainstream of consumer society, in grass-roots efforts, to create social change that positions individuals and groups of people as reflective contributors who occupy a participatory democracy. These activities connect to and draw from feminist and other civil rights movements, sustainability, and do-it-yourself [DIY] activities. They are forms of affective labor. The crafted products are considered in terms of whether they contribute (or do not) to the surplus economy, in terms of class taste, and vis-à-vis their ability to connect people and contribute to social change. Education of craft activists and audiences takes informal forms, such …


Feminist Zines: (Pre)Occupations Of Gender, Politics, And D.I.Y. In A Digital Age, Courtney Lee Weida Jan 2013

Feminist Zines: (Pre)Occupations Of Gender, Politics, And D.I.Y. In A Digital Age, Courtney Lee Weida

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

This article examines the potential of recent feminist zines as frameworks of grassroots D.I.Y. and direct democracy in physical and digital communities. While the height of zine creations as works on paper may be traced to the 1990s, this form of feminist counterculture has evolved and persisted in cyberspace, predating, accompanying, and arguably outlasting the physical reality of protests, revolutions, and political expressions such as the Occupy Movement(s). Contemporary zines contain not only email addresses alongside ‘snail mail’ addresses, but also links to digital sites accompanying real-world resources. Zinesters today utilize the handmade craftsmanship and hand drawn and written techniques …


Managing The Polarities Of Democracy: A Theoretical Framework For Positive Social Change, William J. Benet Jan 2013

Managing The Polarities Of Democracy: A Theoretical Framework For Positive Social Change, William J. Benet

Journal of Sustainable Social Change

People around the globe have embraced democracy to bring about positive social change to address our environmental, economic, and militaristic challenges. Yet, there is no agreement on a definition of democracy that can guide social change efforts. The Polarities of Democracy model is a unifying theory of democracy to guide healthy, sustainable, and just social change efforts. The Polarities of Democracy model consists of ten elements, organized as five polarity pairs: freedom & authority, justice & due process, diversity & equality, human-rights & communal-obligations, and participation & representation. In this model each element has positive aspects and negative aspects and …