Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons^™

Social Justice And Technocracy: Tracing The Narratives Of Inclusive Education In The United States, Scot Danforth

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Over the past two decades, the percentage of American students with disabilities educated in general classrooms with their nondisabled peers has risen by approximately fifty percent. This gradual but steady policy shift has been driven by two distinct narratives of organisational change. The social justice narrative espouses principles of equality and caring across human differences. The narrative of technocracy creates top-down, administrative pressure through hierarchical systems based on quantitative performance data. This article examines these two primary policy narratives of inclusive education in the United States, exploring the conceptual features of each and initiating an analysis of their application in …

Race, Culture And Agency: Examining The Ideologies And Practices Of Us Teachers Of Black Male Students, Quaylan Allen

Education Faculty Articles and Research

This study examines teachers of Black male students in a United States secondary school setting. Qualitative methods were used to document teachers' ideologies of and practices with their Black male students. In general, teachers drew upon competing structural and cultural explanations of Black male social and academic outcomes, while also engaging in practices that contested school barriers for Black males. Teacher beliefs about and practices with their Black male students were inconsistent in many ways, yet their agency on behalf of Black males might be understood as essential to Black male educational progress.

The Possibilities Of Being “Critical”: Discourses That Limit Options For Educators Of Color, Thomas M. Philip, Miguel Zavala

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Through a close reading of the talk of a self-identified critical educator of color, we explore the contradictions, possibilities, limitations, and consequences of this identity for teachers and teacher educators. We examine how the performances of particular critical educator of color identities problematically intertwine claims of Freirian pedagogy with crude dichotomizations of people as critical and non-critical. We explore how particular tropes limit the productive possibilities of being critical for other educators of color and erase the centrality of dialogue, reflexivity, and unfinishedness that define Freirian-inspired notions of being critical.

Biological Evolution In Canadian Science Curricula, Anila Ashgar, Sarah Bean, Wendi O'Neill, Brian Alters

Education Faculty Articles and Research

"The social controversy around biological evolution and creationism continues to persist throughout North America (Alters and Nelson 2002; Berkman and Plutzer 2011; Moore and Cotner 2009; Wiles and Alters 2011; Winslow and others 2011; Rissler and others 2014). This fierce debate has been quite visible in the United States, but seems to be relatively muted in Canada, which may lead many to believe that the dispute does not exist north of the border. While this issue has been researched and documented thoroughly in the US, relatively little is known about its dynamics in Canada, despite the powerful presence of such …

A Forward To The Special Issue On Neoliberalism In Education The Long Road To Redemption: Critical Pedagogy And The Struggle For The Future, Peter Mclaren

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Peter McLaren introduces a special issue of Texas Education Review focused on Neoliberalism in Education by advocating for critical pedagogy in the face of the challenges and harms wrought by American capitalism, politics, and "economic exploitation, racism, homophobia, sexism, imperialism, the coloniality of power and White supremacy".

“Just As Bad As Prisons”: The Challenge Of Dismantling The School-To-Prison Pipeline Through Teacher And Community Education, Quaylan Allen, Kimberly A. White-Smith

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Drawing upon the authors’ experiences working in schools as teachers, teacher educators, researchers, and community members, this study utilizes a Critical Race Theory of education in examining the school-to-prison pipeline for black male students. In doing so, the authors highlight the particular role educators play in the school-to-prison pipeline, focusing particularly on how dispositions toward black males influence educator practices. Recommendations and future directions are provided on how education preparation programs can play a critical role in the transformation of black male schooling.

Comrade Jesus: An Epistolic Manifesto, Peter Mclaren

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Set against the backdrop of the contemporary crisis of capitalism and world-historical events, this article examines the advance of globalized imperialism from the perspective of a Marxist-humanist approach to pedagogy known as “revolutionary critical pedagogy” enriched by liberation theology. It is written as an epistolic manifesto to the transnational capitalist class, demanding that those who willingly serve its interests reconsider their allegiance and calling for a planetary revolution in the way that we both think about capitalism and how education and religion serves to reproduce it at the peril of both students and humanity as a whole.

Education Reform And Potemkin Villages: Expanding Conceptions Of “Data”, Noah Asher Golden

Education Faculty Articles and Research

"I argue that much of the current education reform movement [uses] reductive notions of data to create the appearance of growth as opposed to authentic and sustainable growth in pedagogical practice and outcomes.

Data tell a story. How we select, manage, organize, and report those data influences the story in two ways: (1) it reveals our values and priorities and (2) it has the power to shape, highlight, and/or obscure the knowledge it purports to share. Software and information systems play a central role here as the logic they rely on to structure and use data saturates educational practice (Lynch)."

Review Of Teaching Truly: A Curriculum To Indigenize Mainstream Education By Four Arrows (D. T. Jacobs), K. England-Aytes, G. Cajete, M. R. Fisher, B. A. Mann, B. A., E. Mcgaa, & M. Sorensen, Jorge Rodriguez

Education Faculty Articles and Research

A review of Teaching Truly: A Curriculum to Indigenize Mainstream Education by Four Arrows (D. T. Jacobs), K. England-Aytes, G. Cajete, M. R. Fisher, B. A. Mann, B. A., E. Mcgaa, & M. Sorensen

Attitudes Toward Using Social Networking Sites In Educational Settings With Underperforming Latino Youth: A Mixed Methods Study, Keith Howard, Margaret Sauceda Curwen, Nicol R. Howard, Anaida Colon-Muñiz

Education Faculty Articles and Research

The researchers examined the online social networking attitudes of underperforming Latino high school students in an alternative education program that uses technology as the prime venue for learning. A sequential explanatory mixed methods study was used to cross-check multiple sources of data explaining students’ levels of comfort with utilizing a social networking site platform as a supplemental communication tool in connection with their schoolwork. Students were found to be significantly less comfortable using social networking sites than other online communication tools in connection with their schoolwork, and females were significantly more uncomfortable than males using such sites in school.

Con Respeto: A Conceptual Model For Building Healthy Community-University Partnerships Alongside Mexican Migrant Families, Miguel Zavala, Patricia A. Pérez, Alejandro González, Anna Díaz Villela

Education Faculty Articles and Research

In this paper we grapple with the question of how healthy community and university partnerships can be formed in order to support migrant students’ access to higher education. Employing autoethnographic and narrative research, and drawing from our work within the context of the migrant family conference at California State University, Fullerton from 2011 to 2013, we outline a conceptual model for building healthy partnerships. The first section of this paper offers a general overview of the literature on community-university engagement and collaboration as well as provides background information about the migrant farmworker community. The next section puts forward a new …

Cultivating Democracy At One High School Intervention Program For Latinos At Risk Of Dropping Out, Margaret Sauceda Curwen, Keith Howard

Education Faculty Articles and Research

In California, where this study takes place, it is estimated that 85,000 students drop out of high school annually. Consequences are often linked to economic and social issues including long term economic costs to the state and the likelihood of lesser participation in voting and civic engagement (Rumberger, 2012). This account documents one high school’s alternative intervention program that includes online academic credit recovery and socio-emotional guidance leading to graduation for Latino students who are at risk of dropping out. Findings highlight the program’s support for these students in gaining confidence in self, envisioning themselves in the community and, for …

Culturally Responsive Methodologies At Work In Education Settings, Mere Berryman, Suzanne Soohoo, Ann Nevin, Te Arani Barrett, Therese Ford, Debora Joy Nodelman, Norma Valenzuela, Anna Wilson

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe culturally responsive methodology as a way to develop researchers. The aim is to illuminate the dimensions of culturally responsive methodology such as cultural and epistemological pluralism, deconstruction of Western colonial traditions of research, and primacy of relationships within culturally responsive dialogic encounters. An overarching question is: “How can we maintain the original integrity of both participants and researchers and their respective cultures and co-construct at the same time something new?”

Design/methodology/approach – Five case study narratives are described in order for readers to understand the range and types of studies …

Organizing Against The Neo-Liberal Privatization Of Education In South Los Angeles: Reflections On The Transformative Potential Of Grassroots Research, Miguel Zavala

Education Faculty Articles and Research

This auto/ethnographic study narrates how members of the Association of Raza Educators (ARE), a grassroots teacher-led organization, came together in undertaking action-research within what eventually became a stalled campaign to defend South Los Angeles Elementary from corporate takeover. Most of the work within the campaign involved action-research, including what I term organic popular education. In this paper I analyze the ways in which action-research functions as public pedagogy, further arguing for studies conducted from the vantage point of people immersed in grassroots organizations.

A Critical Patriotism For Urban Schooling: A Call For A Pedagogy Against Fear And Denial And For Democracy, Peter Mclaren

Education Faculty Articles and Research

"I intend to reflect upon the tragic irony of the current crisis of education that leads to Stan Karp (2011) to characterize it as follows: “If you support testing, charters, merit pay, the elimination of tenure and seniority, and control of school policy by corporate managers you’re a ‘reformer.’ If you support increased school funding, collective bargaining, and control of school policy by educators, you’re a ‘defender of the status quo.’” Largely as a result of huge marketing campaigns in the corporate media, it is the ideological right wing who now claims the mantle of reformer and progressive teachers and …

Seeds Of Resistance: Towards A Revolutionary Critical Ecopedagogy, Peter Mclaren

Education Faculty Articles and Research

The death throes of mother earth are imminent unless we decelerate the planetary ecological crisis. Critical educators, who have addressed with firm commitment topics of race, class, gender, sexuality, disability, and other social justice issues are casting their eyes to the antagonism between capitalism and nature to ask themselves how we can rationally regulate the human metabolic relation with nature. As the global power complex reduces human life and mother earth to mere production and consumption, critical revolutionary ecopedagogy is developing new, unalienated forms of selfpresence. Ecopedagogy is inspired by and inspires a new social arc, rooted in practices of …

Education As Class Warfare. An Interview With Scholar/Author Peter Mclaren, Peter Mclaren

Education Faculty Articles and Research

An interview with Peter McLaren about educational reform and how his work is influenced by Marxist theory.

Photographs And Stories: Ethics, Benefits And Dilemmas Of Using Participant Photography With Black Middle-Class Male Youth, Quaylan Allen

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Drawing upon research conducted with Black American middle-class youth in a secondary school, this article highlights the use of participant photography with Black male youth. Participant photography is a visual method that places the power of photo documentation in the hands of research subjects, empowering them to document and reflect on social issues and cultural phenomena important to them. This article highlights the significance of the method when exploring the understudied lives of Black middle-class males, ethical considerations of using visual methods with youth populations, as well as the benefits and dilemmas of engaging Black male youth in participant photography. …

Revolutionary Critical Pedagogy For A Socialist Society: A Manifesto, Peter Mclaren

Education Faculty Articles and Research

"As advocates of revolutionary critical pedagogy, we stand at the turning point in this process. Critical pedagogy is an approach that we have chosen as a necessary (albeit insufficient) vehicle for transforming the world. The work that we do has been adapted from the pathfinding contributions of the late Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire, whose development of pedagogies of the oppressed helped to lay the foundations for approaches (feminist, post-structuralist, Marxist) to teaching and learning that utilizes the life experiences of students in and outside of traditional classrooms to build spaces of dialogue and dialectical thinking. We have renamed our critical …

A Wink Or A Nod, Mr. President? A Call For The President’S Consideration Of Race, Lilia D. Monzó, Suzanne Soohoo

Education Faculty Articles and Research

"Dear Mr. President... We ask now that you pour some attention to race and racism in America, and we submit that your leadership in this area is critically important for people of all colors."

Guided By A Red Star: The Cuban Literacy Campaign And The Challenge Of History, Peter Mclaren

Education Faculty Articles and Research

"I had waited a long time for a doctoral degree in critical pedagogy to be established somewhere in the US, and when I heard about the program at the University of St. Thomas, a prestigious Catholic university, I was sure that more degree programs would be in the making."

Issues In-Depth: Advancing Understanding Of Drug Addiction And Treatment, Roxanne Greitz Miller

Education Faculty Articles and Research

While most school districts utilize a drug abuse resistance curriculum, as science teachers, it is our responsibility to understand the science behind drug addiction in order to most effectively educate our students against drug abuse. In the last two decades, increases in scientific technology have permitted significant discoveries surrounding the neurobiology, genetic components, and treatment of drug addition. This article addresses the latest scientific knowledge about drug addition and treatment with information that can be used in the middle school setting, focusing on cocaine addiction to illustrate the points discussed. (Contains 2 online resources.)

Politics, Pragmatics And Passion: Three Markers On The Teacher Research Journey, Suzanne Soohoo, Chris Strople

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Th is article captures the rich collaboration between a fifth-grade teacher and a university professor in their search for the value and significance of teacher inquiry in public school classrooms. Within this action research, both individuals modified their respective classroom practices so as to accommodate each other in the pursuit of a legitimate and justifiable research question. The end result is that both parties are able to more fully engage in theorizing about the politics, pragmatics, and passion both needed and desired in order to ask relevant research questions.

Fire And Dust, Peter Mclaren

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Drawing upon a Hegelian-Marxist critique of political economy that underscores the fundamental importance of developing a philosophy of praxis, the author theorizes a revolutionary Freireian critical pedagogy which seeks forms of organization that best enable the pursuit of doing critical philosophy as a way of life. The authors argues that the revolutionary critical pedagogy operates from an understanding that the basis of education is political and that spaces need to be created where students can imagine a different world outside of capitalism’s law of value (i.e., social form of labor), where alternatives to capitalism and capitalist institutions can be discussed …

We Change The World By Doing Nothing, Suzanne Soohoo

Education Faculty Articles and Research

"The focus of this essay is on what I refer to as 'bystander apathy.' Bystanderism is the response of people who observe something that demands intervention on their part, but they choose not to get involved. I write this piece to shed light on this issue for others as well as for my own self-reflection - to understand more deeply why some people act against abuses of power and others don't; why sometimes I act and sometimes I don't. What are the forces, both internal and external, that work to keep us all from speaking against and standing up to …

Teaching In And Against The Empire: Critical Pedagogy As Revolutionary Praxis, Peter Mclaren, Gregory Martin, Ramin Farahmandpur, Nathalia Jaramillo

Education Faculty Articles and Research

"All across the country, critical educators are fighting on dozens of fronts, searching in both form and content for a coherent pedagogical expression that captures their opposition to what they perceive as major developments of world-historical importance... Whilst we will mention some of these fronts in our discussion, our focus will be on expanding the concept so that it addresses both the urgency and the scope of the current crisis of capitalism in relation to the crisis of educational reform, and takes as its central aim the struggle against capitalism and imperialism."

Critical Pedagogy As Organizational Praxis: Challenging The Demise Of Civil Society In A Time Of Permanent War, Peter Mclaren, Nathalia E. Jaramillo

Education Faculty Articles and Research

The writers criticize the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the ensuing military and political occupation of the country. They suggest a link between aggressive U.S. military posture and neoliberal globalization and contend that the current situation in Iraq is a metaphor for globalized capitalism across the world. The writers then consider issues surrounding the politics of organization in the search for a socialist alternative to free market capitalism and discuss how critical educators can reinvigorate the civil societarian left at a time when elites are less accountable to civil society than ever before.

Class, Cultism, And Multiculturalism: A Notebook On Forging A Revolutionary Politics, Peter Mclaren, Ramin Farahmandpur

Education Faculty Articles and Research

The writers examine the globalization of capitalism and its implications for class, cultism, and multiculturalism. They cite the need for a revolutionary multicultural pedagogy that would connect the social identities of the marginalized and oppressed with their reproduction within capitalist production relations.

Pedagogy For Revolution Against Education For Capital: An E-Dialogue On Education In Capitalism Today, Peter Mclaren, Glenn Rikowksi

Education Faculty Articles and Research

This dialogue between Peter McLaren (UCLA) and Glenn Rikowski (University of Central England, Birmingham) was conducted by e-mail during January - February 2001. References added.

The Revolutionary Legacy Of Paulo Freire, Peter Mclaren, Valerie Scatamburlo

Education Faculty Articles and Research

"With every line, Freire's writings emanate a spirit, a sense of urgency, and an intensity which is as rare as it is refreshing. He was a passionate pedagogue and activist--someone who too the theory/practice nexus seriously, someone who was engaged in struggle all his life, someone who was much more than an armchair academic."