Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education Commons^™

President Bergeron's 99th Commencement Address, Katherine Bergeron

Commencement Addresses

No abstract provided.

Interdisciplinary Arts As An Agent For Community Building In A U.S. Public School, Ida Pappas

Educational Studies Dissertations

The aim of my dissertation research is to understand the relationship between interdisciplinary arts experiences and the establishment of a community culture in a mainstream public high school in northeast United States. With this research, I hope to provide evidence to support the inclusion of interdisciplinary arts projects in the fabric of students’ high school curricular and extra-curricular experiences. Through engagement in design, art, video, music, dance, theater and the close study of a minority culture, high school participants provided regular responses to planned survey questions and open-ended survey questions (Experience Sampling), as well as through interviews, written prompts and …

Teaching A Human Rights Education Through Youth Athletics, Jacob J. Beaman

Master's Projects and Capstones

Throughout my research and work in education I realized there is often a disconnect between schooling and students especially in low-income areas. It can be incredibly difficult to feel confident at school when the curriculum is not relatable to your experiences and life. In this paper I explore how an athletic program can be used to teach a Human Rights Education to fill in the gaps the traditional school day may not provide. I used a Human Rights Education framework with the teacher/coach as a facilitator and a Critical Race Theory lens examining intersectionality, counter-story telling, and interest convergence in …

The War Against Teachers: How The Discourse Of A Nation At Risk Set The Agenda For Contemporary New Mexico Education Policy, Christine P. Wernle

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

A Nation at Risk (ANAR) represented a paradigm shift in national education policy and public education discourse. This Critical Discourse Analysis utilizing the theoretical framework of Fairclough and Wodak (1997) found five major recurring themes between ANAR, national and state discourse, and NMTEACH (as referenced in the Final Report and Recommendations of the New Mexico Effective Teaching Task Force, 2011): 1) The Establishment of Pedagogic Authority; 2) The Common-Senseness of Education; 3) Anti-Teacher Rhetoric and the Artificial Support of Teachers; 4) Deracialisation of Educational Policy and Color-Blind Ideology; and 5) The Movement from Symbolic to Physical Violence. This study has …

In Conversation With Seth Pollack, Seth Pollack, Marshall Welch

Engaging Pedagogies in Catholic Higher Education (EPiCHE)

In November 2016, EPiCHE Editor Marshall J. Welch sat down with service-learning scholar and practitioner Seth Pollack. They explored how the spiritual and religious dimensions of Seth’s life have influenced his personal passions and academic career.

Seth Pollack is Professor of Service Learning, and the founding faculty director of the Service Learning Institute at California State University, Monterey Bay (CSUMB). For the past 17 years, Seth has provided overall leadership for the Service Learning Institute at CSUMB. In 2005, he received the Thomas Ehrlich Faculty Award for Service Learning, recognized as the nation’s outstanding faculty in the field of community …

Toward A Framework For Interfaith Leadership, Barbara A. Mcgraw

Engaging Pedagogies in Catholic Higher Education (EPiCHE)

Today there is a need for a vision of the world that takes account of religious, spiritual, and non-faith orientations in a way that promotes cooperation and resolves conflict. Educational programs that employ this article’s proposed four-dimensional interfaith leadership framework can contribute to that vision. Through dialogue for understanding and compassion, lens bias reflection and cognitive-affective frame-shifting, religious literacy, and leadership theory and practice, students can become socially conscious leaders who effect positive change in religiously diverse environments. This interfaith leadership framework is especially salient for Catholic institutions of higher education, but is readily extendable for use in other institutions.

In Our Time: Advancing Interfaith Studies Curricula At Catholic Colleges And Universities, Eboo Patel, Noah Silverman, Kristi Del Vecchio

Engaging Pedagogies in Catholic Higher Education (EPiCHE)

People who orient around religion differently are interacting with greater frequency than ever before. These interactions, especially in the context of college and university campuses, require young people to grapple with their own identities in ways that previous generations could more easily avoid. Conversations about religious diversity have become elevated at colleges and universities, which has led Drs. Douglas Jacobsen and Rhonda Hustedt Jacobsen to claim that religion is “no longer invisible” in the context of American higher education.

As an organization that works with hundreds of American colleges and universities every year, Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) believes that Catholic …

Girls Are Us: A Collection Of Oral Histories From The Jmu Community, Anne M. Sherman

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

On a campus where women make up a majority of the student population, it is especially important that female voices are heard and given a platform on which they can control their own narrative. I wanted to give those female-identifying voices that platform. I conducted a series of interviews to examine how college-aged female-identifying students feel about their identity and how they construct that identity within the climate of the JMU community. I was particularly interested in the intersections of gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexual preference, and ability. I asked each person to share their stories of times when they …

Challenging White Folks Pedagogy. A Book Review Of For White Folks Who Teach In The Hood...And The Rest Of Y’All Too—Reality Pedagogy And Urban Education, Awad Ibrahim, Tahmina Reza

Democracy & Education

Once in a while, we argue, an author comes in with a clear conviction and a mastery of language that enable them to create “strong poetry,” a new vision. Using Rorty, we call this person a “strong poet.” This is the case with Christopher Emdin’s (2016) book. He not only reimagines the social category of “White folks,” but also works against the notion of schooling and education they advocate for, which Emdin calls “White folks pedagogy.” Emdin also reimagines “the hood,” not as a geographical, but as a sociocultural category. In sum, Emdin articulates a vision that qualifies him as …

In Defense Of Ambiguity In Education. A Book Review Of Rethinking Sexism, Gender, And Sexuality, Caitlin Howlett

Democracy & Education

This article offers a positive review of Rethinking Sexism, Gender, and Sexuality, a readable and refreshing account of the ambiguities and possibilities relating to gender and sexuality in education today. The review argues that, with a focus on public school experiences, this collection of vignettes, lessons, and critical essays, amounts to a resource that is of great value to teachers, preservice teachers, teacher educators, and citizens as they navigate the ever-changing winds of gender and sexuality, particularly as they diverge and multiply along categories of race, religion, ethnicity, and class. This book offers hope and excitement for those of us …

Teaching Spirituality As Ontology In Public Schools. A Response To "Democratic Foundations Of Spiritual Responsive Pedagogy", Barbara J. Thayer-Bacon

Democracy & Education

In “Democratic Foundations of Spiritually Responsive Pedagogy,” Lingley worried that talk of spirituality is taboo in U.S. public school classrooms. Lingley pointed out that the dominant narrative demands silence on the topic. She wanted to make the case for spiritually responsive pedagogy as vital to an inclusive democracy. I begin this responsive essay by describing Lingley’s argument, and then I strengthen her argument through my work on relational ontologies. When we equate spirituality with ontology, we realize it is impossible to avoid teaching spirituality in our schools, for we begin passing on to our children our fishing nets to help …

Is Culturally Responsive Pedagogy Enough? Toward Culturally “Real”-Evant Curriculum. A Response To "Democratic Foundations For Spiritually Responsive Pedagogy", James A. Gambrell

Democracy & Education

In this response to Lingley's (2016) article "Democratic Foundations of Spiritually Responsive Pedagogy," the author invites the framework of (a)spiritually responsive curriculum to include a more direct engagement with a culturally relevant curriculum as well. The author agrees with Lingley's postulation that (a)spirituality is deeply embedded within the worldview of many students in K–12 classrooms, whether educators include this important aspect of their epistemology or not. Similar to the problems that come when we ignore identities of race, gender, (a)sexuality, (dis)ability, and social class, ignoring these important characteristics of students’ lived experiences is detrimental to learning outcomes and reinforces dominating …

A Call For More Literature And Deeper Data. A Response To "The Cultural Contours Of Democracy: Indigenous Epistemologies Informing South African Citizenship", Moeketsi Letseka

Democracy & Education

This review provides a critical appraisal of Kubow and Min's paper. It teases out their conception of liberalism and argues that the classical notion of liberalism as a political theory that advocates individual liberty based on assumptions of the unencumbered autonomous individual has lost currency. This is because over the years liberalism has mutated into a multiplicity of new forms, and there is no single view that can be said to define what it means to be a liberal. The paper raises methodological questions with respect to the use of focus group interviews. It implores researchers to first ask themselves …

The Critique Of Deliberative Discussion. A Response To “Education For Deliberative Democracy: A Typology Of Classroom Discussions", David I. Backer

Democracy & Education

My response to Samuelsson’s (2016) recent essay offers a different paradigm with which to think about education, deliberative discussion and democracy. I call this paradigm the critique of deliberative discussion. Following Ruitenberg’s application of Mouffe’s critiques of deliberative democracy to education, the critique of deliberative discussion focuses on what Jameson called the “political unconscious” of deliberative discussions like those presented by Samuelsson. There is literature that critique traditionally moderate-liberal notions of deliberative discussion, which Samuelsson defines his typology: reason, willingness to listen, and consensus. While others, like Ruitenberg, have developed this critique of deliberative-democratic citizenship education, the critique of deliberative …

Researching Holistic Democracy In Schools. A Reponse To "Examination Of The New Tech Model As A Holistic Democracy", Philip A. Woods

Democracy & Education

Bradley-Levine reported in her article how she created an opportunity to explore research data with the aim of examining the degree to which New Tech schools were democratic in the sense conceptualized by the notion of holistic democracy. My response is in three parts. The first sets out my understanding of the significance of the model of holistic democracy and the purpose of the framework. The second is a review of Bradley-Levine’s findings, with reflections that occurred to me as I worked through these. The third comprises my conclusions. The framework has been applied, in my judgement, in a diligent …

Teaching For Toleration In Pluralist Liberal Democracies, Betto A.F. Van Waarden

Democracy & Education

This article determines which education enables the perpetuation of diverse ways of life and the liberal democracy that accommodates this diversity. Liberals like John Rawls, Stephen Macedo, and William Galston have disagreed about the scope of civic education. Based on an analysis of toleration—the primary means for maintaining a pluralist liberal democracy—I argue that schools should teach democratic participatory skills and a minimal exposure to diversity to enable citizens to participate in the democratic process of defining which cultural and religious practices the state should tolerate or prohibit through its laws. To make this argument, I contend, in contrast to …

Principles Of The Hidden Heritage Of Correctional Education And Prison Reform, Thom Gehring

Journal of Critical Issues in Educational Practice

Abstract

In all fields of education, theory is in advance of practice (MacCormick, 1931, p. xii).

This essay provides a summary of the historical research themes of the Center for the Study of Correctional Education (CSCE) in the field of prison reform and its leading edge, correctional education. Those themes have been applied at CSCE’s system of parolee schools, the California State University, San Bernardino Reentry Initiative (CSRI). The essay addresses the professional contributions of four contributors or heroes of the correctional education: Alexander Maconochie at a penal colony in the South Pacific, William George among juveniles in New York …

Connecting Beyond The Circle: A Restorative Approach In Co-Creating A Safe Space For Social Justice Education At Utec, Nikki F. Pelonia

Capstone Collection

“Social justice is both a process and a goal. The goal of social justice education is full and equal participation of all groups in a community that is [co-created] to meet the members’ needs. Social justice includes a vision of a community that is equitable and all members are physically and psychologically safe and secure” (Adams, Bell, & Griffin, 2007, p. 1). In the process, one is used to going straight to issues of social justice before connecting by building trusts and relationships. This Course-Linked Capstone in Training focuses on SIT Graduate Institute coursework from Training Design in Experiential Learning …

Training The Masses: Cultural Competency Training: Ethics And Practices Of Sharing Training Designs For Others To Facilitate: Reflections And Recommendations, Jess K. Mccue

Capstone Collection

This course-linked capstone will focus on the ethics and practices of sharing training designs for others to facilitate. It will look closely at my own experience in sharing cultural competency training designs with others within my organization to facilitate. It will focus on the design itself, but more in-depth on the process of sharing designs and healthy collaboration among facilitators and design creators. My experience took place at City Year Boston where over 260 volunteers enter into our AmeriCorps program to work in Boston Public Schools.

For this capstone I will focus on one project in particular that I developed: …

A Retro Development In Education: Evaluating The Feasibility Of Integrating Place-Based Education Into Mississippi Curriculum Standards, Colby K. Mcclain

Honors Theses

This thesis evaluates the feasibility of integrating place-based environmental education activities from Think Green, Take Action: Books and Activities for Kids into the Mississippi Department of Education’s (MDE) Frameworks for Science and Social Studies for K-5. As children develop and experience the world, their ability to understand and interpret the surrounding environments expand; however, Mississippi schools are not focused on experiential environmental education, even though experiencing and understanding the surrounding environment is vital in fostering eagerness to learn. Due to a growing disconnect between humans and the natural world, this thesis examined 37 place- and environment-based activities for children, sixteen …