Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons^™

Transformation From Within: Grounded Practice Of Teachers Amidst Cultural Change, Jesse Jovel, Brandi O. Lucas

Journal of Catholic Education

Francis High School (pseudonym) was opened in Los Angeles during the 1960s in response the Civil Rights issues facing the African American community at the time. In 2001, after years of declining enrollment, Francis High School became a Jesuit owned and operated school and began operating under the Cristo Rey financial model. Despite its historical presence in the community and its rich athletic and academic legacies, the demand for a dynamic approach to education was imminent. Fortunately, a transformation ensued as the school’s mission, goals, and policies changed in order to become more aligned with their new Jesuit, Cristo Rey …

“Does Jesus Want Us To Be Poor?” Student Perspectives Of The Religious Program At A Cristo Rey Network School, Ursula S. Aldana

Journal of Catholic Education

The structure of Catholic schools improves achievement by providing multiple opportunities for face-to-face interaction, the development of meaningful relationships between students, teachers, and other members of the school community, and a shared set of beliefs among all school members (Bryk, Lee, & Holland, 1993). Despite a substantiating body of research for this assertion, few empirical studies exist on how the religious program might impact the intrapersonal and interpersonal development of students. The Cristo Rey Network (CRN) of schools was developed in response to the material realities of students and families living in Chicago (Kearney, 2006). The leaders of the network, …

What Can Jesus Teach Us About Student Engagement?, Glenn James, Elda Martinez, Sherry Herbers

Journal of Catholic Education

This article examines Jesus’s teaching methods as described in the four Gospels, highlighting the ways in which He led listeners to participate actively in their learning. We identify similarities between many of Jesus’s techniques and current practices in the field of student engagement, with a focus on applications for instructors in higher education. Several of His approaches, most notably storytelling and the use of analogies, point to recommendations for improving teaching practice by increasing student engagement in the learning process.

Qu'est-ce que Jésus peut nous apprendre sur l'engagement des élèves?

Cet article examine la manière dont les méthodes d'enseignement de …

Difficult Knowledge And The English Classroom: A Catholic Framework Using Cormac Mccarthy's The Road, Scott Jarvie, Kevin Burke

Journal of Catholic Education

In this article, the authors explore the generative possibilities of risk-taking in the Catholic school English classroom. They associate pedagogical risk with what Deborah Britzman (1998) has called “difficult knowledge”—content that causes students to consider social trauma. Incorporating difficult knowledge meaningfully requires English teachers to take significant pedagogical risks, especially in the Catholic school classroom. Drawing on critical theology and Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road (2006) as a difficult text, the authors employ a case study looking at how the traumatic difficulty of the novel could be fruitfully taught at a Catholic school. How might students reckon with The Road …

The Friendship Journey: Developing Global Understanding In The Middle Grades, Kevin D. Besnoy, Ellen Maddin, Emily Steele, Sara Eisenhardt

Journal of Catholic Education

The goals of developing a global perspective are consistent with the faith-based values of Catholicism. The primary goal is to prepare students academically, morally, and socially to participate in a globalized world that constantly faces new problems. A key component of this is the understanding that other people, who may appear on the surface to be very different from themselves, have differences which have value and similarities which unite us. The purpose of this article is to present one Catholic school’s attempts to prepare its students to meet the challenges of citizenry in an international community and to describe the …

Critical Theory And Catholic Social Teaching: A Research Framework For Catholic Schools, Jill Bradley-Levine, Kari A. Carr

Journal of Catholic Education

In this article, the authors share findings from an ethnographic study drawn from an evaluation of an after-school program directed by a Catholic diocese to meet the educational needs of children attending urban Catholic schools. The authors used critical research methods within the context of Catholic social teaching (CST) as a theoretical framework for the data presented in this article. Two themes emerged during this data collection and analysis. The first theme, student interactions, describes the helpful ways that students engaged with each other during the after-school program, and also the manner in which students exhibited a need for greater …