Education Commons^™

(Un)Packing Your Backpack: Educational Philosophy, Positionality, And Pedagogical Praxis, Yvette Prinsloo Franklin

Doctoral Dissertations

In this philosophical research project, the author examines the question: How can the case be made that there is an imperative need to change the trajectory of current efforts to reduce “achievement gaps” in the United States and (re)vision a transformation of our school settings through conscious-raising sensitivity regarding issues of equity towards equality amongst educators that harnesses the work of philosophy of education scholars? She engages the reader in a theoretical hike through a philosophical argument for attending to philosophical theories of education, extending the work of Jane Roland Martin regarding sensitivity and drawing heavily on the scholarship of …

Must Economics Always Determine Academic Destiny? Achievement Across Time In Two Academically Equivalent But Socioeconomically Diverse Same City Catholic Schools, Roseanne L. Williby, John W. Hill

John W. Hill

The study analyzed the pretest-posttest results of high stakes test scores, absence frequencies, and high school eligibility cut scores of students who completed fourth-grade through eighth-grades in two academically equivalent but socioeconomically diverse same city Catholic schools. Study outcomes were compared for a naturally formed group of students (n = 28) who had completed fourth-grade through eighth-grades in an urban Catholic school representing fewer family socioeconomic advantages and 40% eligibility for free and reduced price lunch program participation and tuition assistance and a randomly selected group of students (n = 28) completing fourth-grade through eighth-grades in a suburban Catholic school …

Moving Beyond Seeing With Our Eyes Wide Shut. A Response To “There Is No Culturally Responsive Teaching Spoken Here”, Kenneth J. Fasching-Varner, Vanessa Dodo Seriki

Democracy and Education

A struggle exists to engage in culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) that authentically represents the voices and interests of all across the K–20 spectrum, from higher education institutions, to teacher preparation programs, and into U.S. classrooms. This article responds to Hayes and Juárez's piece “There Is No Culturally Responsive Teaching Spoken Here” by extending the conversation with the suggestion that one of the major problems in speaking CRP has to do with a disconnect between articulated commitments and actual practices. This response article takes a critical look at the landscape in which educators work to reveal the nature of overrepresentation of …

Attracting Black Male Students To Research Careers In Education: A Report From The Grad Prep Academy Project, Shaun R. Harper, Ph.D., Andrew C. Porter, Ph.D.

Shaun R. Harper, Ph.D.

This report is about the University of Pennsylvania’s Grad Prep Academy, a project that prepares Black undergraduate men for graduate study and research-related careers in the field of education. The project is also a longitudinal research study that enables us to analyze Black men’s trajectories from undergraduate study through graduate degree programs and eventually into their careers. Eighteen students participated in our first two cohorts of Academy Scholars. The project described in this report, as well as the recommendations we offer, can be instructive for other schools of education and a range of stakeholders who are concerned about the diversity …

Unhu/Ubuntu And Education For Reconciliation In Zimbabwe, Oswell Hapanyengwi-Chemhuru, Edward Shizha

Edward Shizha

The paper examines the concept, strengths and shortcomings, role and implementation of the reconciliation policy as Zimbabwe emerged from periods of conflict crisis soon after independence in the 1980s, and the current crisis in the 2000s and how the policy can be introduced in schools through „education for reconciliation‟. The authors argue that education can be used to cultivate reconciliation and national healing in the evidently „wounded‟ people of Zimbabwe who bear scars of colonial times and war, and the post-independence conflicts. Reconciliation through education for “diversity” and tolerance makes a compelling argument in so far as we understand how …

Everyone Wants To Be Like Harvard – Or Do They? Cherishing All Missions Equally, Ellen Hazelkorn

Books/Book chapters

No abstract provided.

High Schools, Race, And America's Future: What Students Can Teach Us About Morality, Diversity, And Community, Lawrence Blum

Lawrence Blum

In High Schools, Race, and America's Future, Lawrence Blum offers a lively account of a rigorous high school course on race and racism. Set in a racially, ethnically, and economically diverse high school, the book chronicles students engagement with one another, with a rich and challenging academic curriculum, and with questions that relate powerfully to their daily lives.

Blum, an acclaimed moral philosopher whose work focuses on issues of race, reflects with candor, insight, and humor on the challenges and surprises encountered in teaching the unexpected turns in conversation, the refreshing directness of students questions, the aha moments and …