Recent bre items

On the Pathway of a Progressive Revolution: A Conjunctural Analysis of New York City School Reopening in the COVID-19 Crisis

Wed, 1 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This study examines the political debate surrounding New York City’s school reopening during the COVID-19 pandemic. Informed by Stuart Hall’s intellectual work, the author views the COVID-19 pandemic as a conjuncture in the terrains of social movements, where discursive possibilities for critical reflections and democratic transformations became available. In this article, the author first focuses on the neoliberal values and ideologies that prioritize the economy and exercise the power of rationality. She then investigates how Hall’s concepts of articulation and hegemony supported us to examine the ways race, class, and other social factors interacted within the contemporary sociopolitical context. The analysis demonstrates the empowerment and solidarity people built through engaging in the PEP public hearings and provides insights into rethinking what the educational and social system could look like in the post-COVID world.

Geography and College Choice: A Systematic Literature Review Using Critical Race Spatial Analysis

Wed, 1 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This systematic literature review analyzed the theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches higher education researchers used to examine the intersections between geography and student college choice. The literature review was guided by Critical Race Spatial Analysis, a conceptual framework and methodological approach for studying the interconnections between race, racism, space, and educational opportunity. The synthesis and analysis of 24 peer-reviewed empirical journal articles revealed that higher education researchers typically failed to employ a theoretical framework to conceptualize these intersections or relied on race-neutral economic perspectives to study geographic disparities in college choice. The analysis of the methods used by higher education researchers found that scholars over-relied on quantitative research approaches, such as regression analyses. These findings suggest that future research examining the intersections between geography and college...

You Matter: Empowering Youth Voices in Schools

Tue, 17 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

You Matter: Empowering Youth Voices in Schools

From Youth Activism to Youth-Powered Curriculum

Tue, 17 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

How do youth move in an uprising? Members of YoUthROC, a BIPOC-centered, youth-led research group with young people from both the university and the community, reflect on creating a youth-powered curriculum that processes years of activism and inspires young people to use teaching as a way to create change in their communities. To ensure the relevance of their curriculum to the current needs, strengths, and curiosities of young people, the YoUthROC team wrote and collected autoethnographies, cataloged historical artifacts, analyzed social media, and conducted public focus groups and Instagram spotlight interviews during a year of uprising and unrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Results from this research include the following themes: the centrality of collectivism, internal and collective self-determination, and young people’s already-existing commitment to analysis and change. Educators, adult activists, and youth need to see that young people are central to social movements...

A tale of two projects: YPAR in and out of school – bounded versus open inquiry

Mon, 27 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This project examined the experiences of six Ethnic Studies students who simultaneously engaged in two youth participatory action research (YPAR) projects, one in school and one out of school. The in-school project was situated within an urban high school that had a predominantly Latinx student population. The research explores the relationship between program context and student experiences of YPAR and was guided by the following question: How do students who are simultaneously involved in two YPAR projects experience an in-school YPAR endeavor along with an afterschool YPAR project, and what are the possibilities and limitations of such interventions? This qualitative case study utilized ethnographic methods, interviews, and a survey to better understand the youth experiences. Findings illustrated that students preferred YPAR to both an Ethnic Studies classroom and a traditional classroom. However, within YPAR, the students preferred the...

There’s Always a Way Out: Spatial Domination, Disappearance, and Free Movement in the Carceral-Education Landscape

Sun, 26 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This article aims to think beyond schooling as the terrain on which educational liberation might be achieved. Based on ethnographic research with students who have been pushed or pulled into alternative education, I explore how schooling operates through mundane forms of spatial domination that attempt to track, force, and contain the movement of Black and Brown young people within and between places, and across a carceral-education landscape more broadly. Through a Black feminist geographic lens, however, I read below patterns of forced disappearance to consider the ways students disappear themselves. Young people’s persistence in moving freely within and away from sites of spatial domination charts the possibilities for educational liberation beyond formal schooling.

Framing of Black and Latinx School Closure in Redeveloping Hartford, Connecticut

Sun, 12 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In January 2018, the mayoral-controlled Hartford Board of Education voted to officially close four mostly Black and Latinx schools as part of a district reorganization for “excellence.” This decision followed a decade of market-oriented reforms of school choice and closure promoted as a reform lever to improve academic achievement in a district under a school desegregation order and settlement. As part of a broader case study, this article draws on framing theory and the concept of accumulation by dispossession in order to compare stakeholder responses to the proposed closure of two schools in Hartford, Connecticut, at a moment of shifting public funds towards urban redevelopment. This article argues that stakeholders’ framing of responses connected to the form of school closure and their frame resonance, or effectiveness to connect with each other and the audience, related to status and identity in the district. This study supports the need for deeper understanding of how...

A Revised GTCrit Framework: A Broadened Critical Lens for Gifted and Advanced Education Settings

Sun, 12 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

For decades, gifted education equity advocates have sought to ameliorate the field’s long-standing issue of under-representation of students from historically marginalized communities. Little improvement has been realized in schools over this time (Peters, 2022). Recently, Novak (2022b) presented a GTCrit framework in a textbook primarily centered on race and directed towards gifted education practitioners and advocates; however, since critical frameworks have been largely lacking from gifted education research (Goings & Ford, 2018), and additional issues beyond race are present in the field, a broadening of Novak’s initially proposed framework may be beneficial in moving critical theories into research pertaining to gifted education. In this piece, I highlight the equity areas most relevant to the field of gifted education and build upon Novak’s (2022b) ideas to present a revised conceptual framework that could be applied to both practical settings and research about gifted...

A is for Apple, B is for Bulletproof: The racialized fortification of schools

Mon, 6 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

From Colorado and Connecticut to Florida and Texas, school shootings have struck the U.S. education system. In response, the fortification of schools has accelerated and deepened. Fortification entails prioritizing and instituting multiple types of infrastructure, technology, and routines that militarize schools while defining 'safety' as a function of the building and framing educators as responders to gun violence. Fortification asks educational administrators, teachers, and staff to work in new and different ways. It is vital to comprehend the structures, policies, conceptualizations, resources, and activities associated with fortification, as a taken for granted and costly response to gun violence in schools. We apply structure-agency theory to advance arguments on the fortification of schools. This article explicitly portrays how fortification occurs in racialized organizations. Our discussion of fortification sheds light on racist dimensions of school safety, operationalizes...

Editors' Introduction, Volume 11 Issue 1

Mon, 2 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000
Editors' Introduction, Volume 11 Issue 1

(Critical) Multilingual and Multicultural Awareness in the Pedagogical Responsiveness of Educators

Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This study examined the elements of (critical) multicultural awareness and (critical) multilingual awareness identified in the pedagogical responsiveness of six literacy teacher educators, the features of a research-practice partnership (RPP) that influenced this awareness, and the ways in which this awareness shaped educators’ pedagogical responsiveness in literacy. Findings showed that educators reflected certain elements of (C)MA and (C)MLA as they worked with teachers to support writing instruction for culturally and linguistically diverse students (CLDs). Educators’ perceptions influencing awareness were assumptions based on otherness and teaching experience. Elements influencing awareness were positioning, observations related to literacy expertise, and discipline. Awareness, in turn, influenced educators’ cultural and linguistic responsiveness as they developed the ability to capitalize on difference and identify and use social currency. Implications...

Contextual Support in the Home for Children's Early Literacy Development

Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Home literacy environment (HLE) refers to the physical, interpersonal, and emotional / motivational factors in the home that have been found to be important for children’s literacy development. In this paper, the emergence of HLE research, its conceptualizations, and the effects of HLE factors, will be reviewed with an emphasis on the relations between HLE and children’s early literacy skills. Challenges faced by HLE researchers are also considered, and three aspects of issues are identified: privacy sensitivity, measure validity, and intervention fidelity. Apart from what is already known, this paper will also provide a summary of possible goals for future research.

The Rationality of Protest: A Foucauldian Analytics of Teacher Activism

Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The recent wave of teacher activism and strikes across the United States is unprecedented. While it has been commented upon and understood in various ways, this essay departs from actor-centric modes of analysis that have been taken up. Instead, I read recent teacher activism efforts through a Foucauldian analytics of protest which examines the rationalities used to justify political action in order to understand how, in some ways, teachers paradoxically reified the logics of education reform efforts which they sought to oppose. Following this I offer several examples of protest which exist in much different forms which unveil political possibilities beyond the logics of reform. Through doing so, I invite not only an understanding of past actions but also a future engagement with transformative modes of teacher activism which have become only more necessary since the 2018 strike wave.

Racial Control and Student Labor

Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The exploitation of labor has occupied a central role in historical analysis of race and racism. In considering schooling as a site of institutional racism, however, the exploitation of student labor is seldom considered seriously. This is all the more surprising given the extent to which school is organized around the efficient extraction of student work, and the amount of thought which goes into maximizing productivity, achievement, and success. Here, I discuss schooling in two ways: first, as an institution of racial control; second, as a structure of labor exploitation. I first discuss problems with dominant scholarship dealing with economic reproduction in schooling, and then highlight the historical dimensions of schooling as a site of racial labor exploitation. Next, I describe the utilities (corporate and social) of student labor in contemporary racial capitalism. Finally, I suggest that looking at schooling as a site of labor exploitation enables us to locate a ‘general...

Development and Validation of an Empirical Instrument to assess Empathy Driven Organizational Justice systems in schools

Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Organizational justice refers to the perceptions of the members of an organization with regards to the fair and just nature of organizational processes. School students are susceptible to unfair and unjust experiences due to the hierarchical and mechanistic nature of school organizations. In order to create nurturing school climates, it is necessary for schools to encourage just and fair organizational justice systems. This study attempted to develop and validate a scale which measured empathic organizational justice. The study was conducted among a random sample of 172 school students from Indian schools. The instrument consisted of three subscales representing equality, respect and positivity. It was further tested and validated for convergent, discriminant and concurrent validity. The instrument might present as a useful tool to measure the levels of empathic organizational justice systems in Indian schools so that interventions can be designed...

Policy Translation of Social Movements Demands: The Case of Free-Tuition in Higher Education in Chile

Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Chile experienced massive student protests against market-based education in 2011. In 2013, center-left President Michelle Bachelet proposed tuition-free higher education for Chile’s bottom 70%, fueling controversy due to the uncertainty and unexpected medium and long-term consequences. This study analyzes how the free-tuition policy was developed, the actors involved, the political discourse deployed during its implementation, and the strategy used to make this policy a reality. Using semi-structured interviews with key actors, such as policymakers and scholars, and a review of newspaper columns, we wanted to explore how politicians and bureaucrats translated the students’ demands into the free-tuition policy. Our findings suggest that the policy translation process involved former student leaders, free-tuition policy prioritization, and a quick, straightforward implementation process that enabled the government to fulfill its promise.

What’s Lost, What’s Left, What’s Next: Lessons Learned From the Lived Experiences of Teachers During the Pandemic

Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

To understand the experiences of educators during the 2020 extended school closures, we interviewed 40 teachers from across the country in public, charter, and private schools, at different grade levels, and in different subject areas. Teachers articulated three main concerns about emergency remote schooling: 1.) student motivation; 2.) professional loss and burnout; and 3.) exacerbated inequities. As the climate emergency makes school disruptions more common, school systems must learn from the tragic school closings under COVID-19 to prepare for an uncertain future. We propose five design considerations to build school systems with greater resilience for the long-term: center equity, focus on relationship-building, address student motivation, address staff motivation and burnout, and mitigate uncertainty.

Nice to Whom?: How Midwestern Niceness Undermines Educational Equity

Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

While U.S. schools grapple with persistent racial inequities, we argue that niceness, a socioemotional way of being that privileges whiteness, regularly impedes “equity” and “diversity” efforts in K-12 and teacher education settings. In the Midwest, niceness is uniquely rooted in a historical “obsession with public civility” (Cayton & Gray, 2002) that advances whiteness through a “demure white supremacy” (Cleveland, 2021), particularly in education. Here, the authors theorize Midwestern educational niceness, a regionally produced and enacted phenomenon “nicely” instantiated by the predominantly overwhelmingly white, Midwestern teacher workforce that actually stymies equity efforts. The authors conceptualize the ways whiteness through niceness works through a number of other phenomena including color evasiveness (Annamma et al., 2017; Bonilla-Silva, 2003), white fragility (DiAngelo, 2018), and emotionalities of whiteness (Matias, 2016). Countering the insidiousness of Midwestern...

The Politics of Fair and Affordable Housing in Metropolitan Atlanta: Challenges for Educational Opportunity

Fri, 25 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This qualitative case study considers the politics of the coalitions that emerged to address fair and affordable housing in the Atlanta metropolitan area between 2017 and 2020 and the connections or barriers they identified to educational opportunity. It applies regional, civic capacity, and social construction of policy frameworks to explore in which arenas the two issue areas of housing and education have been linked by policymakers, and by selected civic entities, non-profit organizations, and philanthropies. The case draws on demographic data, interviews, and documents in the analysis of the barriers to, and possibilities for, coordination of housing and education policy instruments to promote educational opportunity in the region. The author found that the majority of efforts to bridge the two policy areas were developed and led by non-profit actors, and mostly took the form of place-based interventions rather than mobility programs. Implications of these findings...

Professionalizing Teachers and Teaching Amid the Pandemic in Chile

Mon, 1 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000
Professionalizing Teachers and Teaching Amid the Pandemic in Chile

Editors' Introduction

Tue, 26 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000
Editors' Introduction

This Isn’t What Anyone Planned: What Homeschooling Mothers Can Teach Us About Pandemic-Schooling

Mon, 11 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000
This Isn’t What Anyone Planned: What Homeschooling Mothers Can Teach Us About Pandemic-Schooling

The Emotional Labor of Race-Gender Dialogue in Higher Education

Mon, 11 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000
The Emotional Labor of Race-Gender Dialogue in Higher Education

Tinkering No More: A Call for Social Movements in This Time of Crisis

Mon, 11 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000
Tinkering No More: A Call for Social Movements in This Time of Crisis

Unicorns Are Real: A Narrative Synthesis of Black Men’s Career Trajectories in Special Education in the United States

Fri, 1 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Black male teachers are scarce, and Black males who teach special education are so rare as to be metaphorical unicorns. As a result, both empirical and theoretical research that examines the trajectories of Black male teachers has almost completely avoided addressing Black men who teach special education. This narrative synthesis examines the historical landscape of Black teachers in general, the difficulties they face, and the limited empirical research on Black male special education teachers. Policy and research implications are explored, reflecting the dire need for Black male special education teachers in the United States and programs to improve their participation and retention.

Student Movements Against the Imperial University: Toward a Genealogy of Disability Justice in U.S. Higher Education

Fri, 1 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This article explores insurgent knowledge created by student organizers who are collectively challenging institutional complicity with U.S. imperialism, racial capitalism, settler-colonialism, and disability injustice through social movements on U.S. college campuses. Taking Syracuse University as a case study of anti-imperialist student organizing from 1968-1970, I analyze student protest materials—primarily political education leaflets and literature opposing the Vietnam War and anti-Black racism—from the university archives. Following a lineage of anti-imperialist student organizing from the second half of the twentieth century to the present-day student movement for justice in Palestine, I highlight traces of disability within histories of student protest that have largely been framed as extraneous to disability issues and histories on U.S. campuses. My argument is twofold: 1. Student movements opposing Israeli apartheid, U.S. imperialism, and settler-colonialism are also...

Unpacking the T: Understanding the Diverse Experiences Trans Students Navigating Schools

Fri, 1 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

In this mixed methods study, we use quantitative and narrative survey data from 47 parents/guardians of trans youth to understand their experiences navigating schools. In our analytic process, we recognized that how students identified mattered to parents/guardians’ stories. We use trans theories and concepts of materiality, embodiment, and subjection to understand our initial thematic analysis. Our findings indicate the need to attend to students’ material bodies, how their embodied experiences differ based on how they are read and which “rules” they “break,” and how masculinity and femininity might be regulated differently. We aim to contribute to the growing literature in PK-12 education that calls for research to differentiate the experiences of trans students by unpacking the T.

Editors' Introduction

Wed, 15 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000
Editors' Introduction

Too Much “On the Line”: My LAUSD Strike Experience

Mon, 13 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000
Too Much “On the Line”: My LAUSD Strike Experience

Seven Days that Shook Oakland and the One that Shook Us Up

Tue, 7 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000
Seven Days that Shook Oakland and the One that Shook Us Up

The Future of Education: Black Life and Our Classrooms A Moderated Panel Discussion

Sat, 4 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This piece is an abridged version of a panel discussion that was part of the symposium on Anti-Black State Violence Across the Americas: Power and Struggle in Brazil and the U.S., held at UC Berkeley on February 20–22, 2019, and organized by the LUTA Initiative, a coalition of scholars invested in facilitating international dialogue about racialized state violence across the Americas. The conversation featured Cherrish Cook and Muwazu Chisum-Misquitta (Berkeley High School Student Activists, United States) in conversation with Onirê Onã Walê Borges dos Santos and Andreia Beatriz Silva dos Santos (React or Die/Winnie Mandela Pan-Africanist School, Salvador da Bahia, Brazil). C. Darius Gordon moderated the panel (Editor, Berkeley Review of Education, Graduate School of Education, UC Berkeley). Alejandro Reyes performed transcription and translation for this article. For more information on the LUTA Initiative, the symposium, and a full video of this panel discussion with English...

Educators Striking for a Better World: The Significance of Social Movement and Solidarity Unionisms

Sat, 4 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000
Educators Striking for a Better World: The Significance of Social Movement and Solidarity Unionisms

Towards a Theory of Teacher Agency: Conceptualizing the Political Positions and Possibilities of Teacher Movements

Sat, 4 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

In response to a need for increased engagement given the #RedForEd movement, this article draws upon my experience as an organizer and participant in the recent wave of teacher activism to provide implications for theories of teacher agency and political transformation. First, I conceptualize the Arizona #RedForEd movement’s unique position beyond the state’s logics of political power, considering the possibilities that such a position created for teacher-activists in Arizona. I then confront the decreasing power of the movement in order to demonstrate the need for increased theorizations of the reflexive capacities of institutionalized power structures to sustain oppositional education social movements. I consider the recent history of the RedForEd movement with the hope of forwarding renewed considerations of political transformation, power, and teacher agency, which can inform movements that challenge the hegemonic limits placed upon social-justice-oriented movement...

Winning in Baltimore: The Story of How BMORE Put Racial Equity at the Center of Teacher Union Organizing

Sat, 4 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000
Winning in Baltimore: The Story of How BMORE Put Racial Equity at the Center of Teacher Union Organizing

SOLIDARITY FOREVER

Sat, 4 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000
SOLIDARITY FOREVER

“People, Not Profits”: The Professional Organizations We Need

Sat, 4 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This article uses a scrapbook design to narrate the authors’ experiences protesting the use of high-stakes performance assessments in teacher preparation programs by engaging in demonstrations during—and proposing policy at—the annual conventions of a large national teachers’ organization. These narrations are used to raise questions about how professional education organizations define advocacy at a time when neoliberal education reforms limit educators’ capacity to carry out our collective responsibilities to marginalized and vulnerable youth. The authors suggest that in the current political climate that has dehumanized youth, demoralized their teachers, and disempowered teacher educators, educators need professional organizations that explicitly name injustices associated with the reductive curricula and for-profit tests that are hindering local teachers’ and teacher educators’ responsiveness to learners and engagement with democratic processes. In response...

Disrupting the Ideology of Settled Expectations: Forging New Social Movements to Dismantle the Educational Racial Contract

Sat, 4 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This paper draws on the concepts of settled expectations and the educational racial contract to provide an analysis of the current social movements calling for the improvement of teacher salaries and work conditions in K-12 schools. This paper argues that some teacher unions’ lack of centering race in their advocacy to ameliorate educational inequities will not radically transform how teachers are treated in the profession, unless there is an increase in motivation to fully recognize the humanity and educational needs of Students of Color in American society. The author calls for teacher activists to reject the false consciousness of their own settled expectations and work on equal footing with Communities of Color to co-author an emancipatory educational contract on the basis of relational equity, respect, and sympathetic touch.

Emergent Bilingual and Multilingual Learners in California: Californians Together Passing the Torch to the Next Generation of Advocates (1996 to Present)

Sat, 4 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000
Emergent Bilingual and Multilingual Learners in California: Californians Together Passing the Torch to the Next Generation of Advocates (1996 to Present)

Editor's Introduction

Sat, 4 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000
Editor's Introduction

In North Carolina, Education Activists Face an Uphill Battle

Sat, 4 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000
In North Carolina, Education Activists Face an Uphill Battle

Building Power Through Racial Justice: Organizing the #BlackLivesMatterAtSchool Week of Action in K-12 and Beyond

Sat, 4 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000
Building Power Through Racial Justice: Organizing the #BlackLivesMatterAtSchool Week of Action in K-12 and Beyond

Mobilizing Blackness: Analyzing 21st Century Black Student Collective Agency in the University

Wed, 1 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Black student activism in the 21 ^st century has gained international notoriety with popular movements such as #StudentBlackOut, #FeesMustFall, and #ConcernedStudent1950. Between 2014-2017, Black students manipulated the momentum of a larger social movement (the Movement for Black Lives) in order to secure organizing victories for racial justice, both on and off their college campuses. This essay explores the meaning making processes of Black student activists who participated either in on campus or off campus activism between 2014-2017. Emerging themes from the interviews have demonstrated that Black student activists are both politicized and enter movement organizing because of catalytic events, and they see themselves as resource brokers who funnel university resources, labor, and energy into dispossessed communities. I argue that students use their racialized subjectivities in the neoliberal university space to leverage resources. In...

The Role of a Summer Field Experience in Fostering STEM Students' Socioemotional Perceptions and Social Justice Awareness as Preparation for a Science Teaching Career

Wed, 1 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This study aims to better understand the role that teacher exploration programs play in supporting science teacher education recruitment and retention in ways that are consistent with social justice goals. Utilizing reflective and descriptive journal data from 126 STEM undergraduate students engaged in an intensive and immersive four-day internship that took place in summer 2015 and summer 2016, this study examines how a well-integrated field experience prepares students to consider a possible future science teaching career in high needs schools. Findings indicate that students who participated in this summer field experience program developed classroom pedagogical knowledge and skills, as well as heightened interpersonal, socioemotional understanding with respect to students. As preparation for the possibility of entering a social-justice focused credential teaching program, the internships also exposed the STEM undergraduates to high-need schools, fostered interns'...

Early Childhood Education and Care and the Use of Digital Media in Informal Environments

Wed, 1 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000
Early childhood is a time of rapid development when children are constantly influenced by experiences and relationships formed in informal environments. In a world that is increasingly reliant on digital media, parents and other caregivers play an important role in managing their children’s use of it. Parents’ choices regarding digital media use heavily depend on their understanding of how children learn from them and how they impact children’s development at different ages and developmental stages. The use of digital media has potential benefits in terms of improved cognitive and literacy skills, but it also has potential risks in terms of lower executive functioning and social-emotional skills due to a lack of social interactions. This article informs the role of parents and other caregivers who can help children benefit from the opportunities that digital media present, while making sure that children experience real-life interactions that are vital to children’s overall development...

Disrupt, Defy, and Demand: Movements Toward Multiculturalism at the University of Oregon, 1968-2015

Wed, 1 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This essay explores the history of activism among students of color at the University of Oregon from 1968 to 2015. These students sought to further democratize and diversify curriculum and student services through various means of reform. Beginning in 1968 with the Black Student Union’s demands and proposals for sweeping institutional reform, which included the proposal for a School of Black Studies, this research examines how the Black Student Union created a foundation for future activism among students of color in later decades. Coalitions of affinity groups in the 1990s continued this activist work and pressured the university administration and faculty to adopt a more culturally pluralistic curriculum. This essay also includes a brief examination of the state of Oregon’s and the city of Eugene, Oregon’s, history, and their well-documented history of racism and exclusion. This brief examination provides necessary historical context and illuminates how the University of...

South Asian Americans’ Microaggression Experiences in School: Retrospective Reflections on Interactions with K-12 Teachers

Wed, 1 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A study aimed to examine South Asian American experiences in schools, especially in context of interactions with teachers through qualitative, was undertaken, and used retrospective narrative responses about microaggressions from ten South Asian American young adults (from a broader sample, n = 85) reflecting on experiences in K-12 settings. Retrospective responses to constructed survey items about participants' experiences revealed four key themes, which are explored in this paper: (a) overt racism (“microassaults” and “microinsults”), (b) an expectation that South Asian American students serve as “spokespersons” for their cultural or racial group, (c) a tendency to expect students to be spokespeople even when the student is unqualified to do so, and (d) a willingness or unwillingness on behalf of some students to serve as spokespersons. Implications and recommendations, including that teachers refrain from positioning students of color as "spokespersons" for their perceived...

“We teach in English here”: Conflict between language ideology and test accountability in an English-only newcomer school

Wed, 1 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000
Drawing from a six-month ethnography of tenth grade immigrant students from Mexico and their teachers in a Central Texas English immersion program, this article documents multiple contradictory teacher practices regarding the use of English and Spanish in the classroom. This article argues that these varying practices represented a tension between Literacy High’s official English-only policy and a contradictory political ideology prioritizing performance on standardized tests that led to tolerance of Spanish language use.

Editors' Introduction

Wed, 17 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000
Editors' Introduction

Editors' Introduction

Mon, 7 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000
Volume 8 Issue 1

Policies and People: A Review of Neoliberalism and Educational Technologies in P-12 Education Research

Tue, 1 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000
Accountability regimes, value added, vouchers—it is difficult to ignore the evidence of market-based rationalities in global discourses around education. Such rationalities rely heavily on Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) for their propagation and maintenance under the guise of educational technologies, or ed-tech. The purpose of this literature review is to examine educational research focused on the role ICTs have played in the neoliberalization of education across the globe. The author contends that future inquiry needs to substantiate the broad claims about the pernicious effects of neoliberalized educational technologies by engaging more directly with those most affected: teachers and students.

“Signifying Nothing”: Identifying Conceptions of Youth Civic Identity in the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards and the National Assessment of Educational Progress’ Reading Framework

Tue, 1 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

This manuscript examines how national reading policies in the United States shape specific kinds of civic identities for K–12 students. We engage in a thematic discourse analysis of two contemporary national policy documents—the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Reading Framework —to understand the ways citizenship is defined and constructed at the national level. By reading these documents for how they conceptualize civic-based educational outcomes, we interrogate the disconnects between this language and the civic contexts—and potential outlets for civic action—that young people are navigating in the United States today. We examine how seemingly benign policy documents define citizenship in increasingly narrow visions of individualist passivity, and how such definitions run counter to the expansive visions necessary to honor the lived experiences of young...

Challenging the Relationship Between Settler Colonial Ideology and Higher Education Spaces

Tue, 1 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

In this article, I analyze, evaluate, and problematize the structure of settler colonialism and demonstrate how it is a process that remains entrenched in the U.S. educational system. I build on previous work done on settler colonial ideology by linking structural forms of settler colonial power to the lived experiences of Indigenous students, using their voices to describe how pervasive and harmful settler colonial ideology is in practice. From their descriptions of the replication of colonial ideology within policies and practices in higher education, the participants create a compelling image of the ongoing dominant influence of settler colonial power in their lives. Challenging settler colonial ideology is not just about providing a more accurate historical record of what occurred in the U.S. Rather, challenging settler colonial ideology reaffirms the value and importance of Indigenous people in the U.S.

Choice Matters: Equity and Literacy Achievement

Tue, 1 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Students’ freedom of choice is critical to promoting equity and literacy in the classroom. When students choose what they read, they are more likely to find books that represent their lives, interests, and personal desires and feel that they are autonomous and can self-regulate learning. Previous research suggests that offering choice during learning activities increases motivation. However, less is known about whether choice is related to reading performance and which factors predict choice. Examining data from fourth-grade students, we found that students’ perception of choice in their reading materials is associated with literacy achievement, even when accounting for the degree to which the teacher reports providing choice of texts in the classroom and student interest. These findings suggest that true choice (i.e., choice that resides within the student) is linked to greater learning than choice that a teacher determines externally. Further, we argue it may be especially...

Editors' Introduction

Tue, 7 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000
Introduction to Volume 7, Issue 2.

Students Taking Social Action: Critical Literacy Practices Through School-As-Museum Learning

Mon, 1 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Inspired by critical literacy practices, sixth-grade students at Carter Elementary designed, curated, and publicly displayed a museum exhibit to expose and confront issues of social justice. Through this case study of one display within the exhibit, we analyze the ideas and stances represented in each of its artifacts and investigate how, together, the data sources create a discursive chain in regard to social action. We call on critically oriented discourse analysis (Gee, 2005; Rogers & Mosley Wetzel, 2013) to interpret the densely multimodal artifacts, considering how ideas and stances are embodied and intertextual. Our findings reveal how student-created museum learning can stimulate transformative stances toward social action and serve as powerful mediums for youth activism. The study contributes important insights to the field of literacy studies, particularly how social action can be integrated into teaching and learning processes through multimodal public exhibits.
...

Silencing Racialized Humor in Elementary School: Consequences of Colormuting and Whiteness for Students of Color

Mon, 1 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000
Racial humor among students of color presents a sociopolitical dilemma for teachers, requiring rapid calculations of if and how to respond in ways that support an inclusive and equitable classroom climate. This analysis uses two instances of racial humor in an elementary classroom to unpack a White teacher’s responses to students of color who were both creators of and audience to racial jokes. Starting from the point of affirming the teacher’s decision to intervene, findings explore the ramifications of how intervening had multiple, layered consequences for the dynamics of silencing and racialization among students of color. The purpose of this approach is to model how to sift through the complications of silencing race talk and to support conceptual and practical conversations about anti-racist pedagogical moves in the midst of fleeting, meaningful moments in classroom socialization to race.

The Challenges and Possibilities of Youth Participatory Action Research for Teachers and Students in Public School Classrooms

Mon, 1 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This study explores the challenges and successes that two public school teachers experienced while implementing youth participatory action research (YPAR) with their students in core academic classrooms. Most academic studies of YPAR have focused on university-based researchers implementing YPAR with youth outside school settings or in special courses inside schools such as electives. Hence, the findings of existing research may not adequately predict the experiences of teachers implementing YPAR within the constraints and requirements of core academic classrooms. Using action research and ethnographic approaches including interviews, field notes, teaching artifacts from classroom observations, and reflective conversations with teachers, I found that the two teachers successfully implemented the epistemological tenets of YPAR in many ways and achieved positive outcomes. However, they were also stymied by structural issues common to core academic classrooms, such as required...

Looking Backward to Go Forward: Toward a Kliebardian Approach to Curriculum Theory

Mon, 1 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This paper analyzes the work of Herbert M. Kliebard, not only as a curricular historian, but also as a curricular theorist. We focus on his approach to studying the history of education and curriculum as a methodological framework for understanding the purpose of education. Next, we explore two important curricular events in the 1930s: The Eight-Year Study and the social studies textbooks of Harold Rugg. While the 1930s were markedly different from today, most notably in terms of the demographic and educational contexts of the United States, our analysis points to ways that educational scholars in the 21st century might mobilize more Kliebardian insights in their work. In both sections, we build from Kliebard’s discussion to explore ways in which massive poverty and economic precarity did not lead to the federal centralization of curriculum and school policy, but rather to a range of localized and radical curricular interventions and practices. We then draw from the sense of...

(Re)production of the Contemporary Elite Through Higher Education: A Review of Critical Scholarship

Mon, 1 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This article addresses how the elite class in the United States is (re)produced by and through institutions of higher education, especially the most selective institutions. Through a review of critical, interdisciplinary research on socioeconomic inequality, elitism, and higher education, this paper begins with an overview of contemporary economic inequality and a description of the “new elites” that benefit from this inequality. Using neoliberal ideology and meritocracy as frameworks, I then discuss how recent and current trends in higher education have allowed colleges and universities, particularly those considered most prestigious, to intensify inequality and contribute to class reproduction. Specifically, as the role of income supersedes that of inheritance in fueling inequality, outsized wealth can be much more easily claimed as fair and deserved and simply a natural byproduct of a system—supported by prestigious institutions of higher education—that rewards...

Constructing the Literate Child in the Library: An Analysis of School Library Standards

Mon, 1 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I examine one set of elementary school library standards (New York City School Library System, n.d.) in an effort to analyze the impact that the standards might have on literacy experiences for young children in one urban school setting. Employing a critical discourse analysis framework, I examine the language that the Empire State Information Fluency Continuum uses to privilege certain kinds of knowledge construction. Focusing on the descriptions of knowledge, inquiry, and informational literacy constructed by the standards, I argue that the Information Fluency Continuum perpetuates notions of literacy and inquiry that are linear and hierarchical. I argue that educator conceptions of inquiry, engagements with texts, and social responsibility practices must be widened. Rather than expecting students to follow a sequential set of steps, libraries might be a space where students are given agency to decide when and how they would engage in literacy and pursue inquiries....

Using Ethnography to Understand How Policy Reform Influences the Transfer Process at One Community College

Mon, 1 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

A critical function of community college is providing students with pathways to a bachelor’s degree through transfer. Although students hold high aspirations of transferring, their rates of success are extremely low. In California, policymakers have used legislation as a primary mechanism of addressing transfer inefficiencies in the state’s tiered higher education system. This article explores the ways that recent state-level reform policy SB-1440 (Student Transfer Achievement Reform Act, 2010)—intended to streamline the transfer process through Associate Degrees for Transfer—affected existing practices, practitioners, and transfer-seeking students at one community college. Employing an ethnographic approach, this study highlights the interaction between the existing context and policy mandates that reshape campus transfer culture. The findings indicate that, although the transfer policy reform was intended to improve transfer pathways for students, there was a disconnect between...

Legitimizing the Dilettante: Teach For America and the Allure of Ed Cred

Mon, 1 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Teach For America (TFA) corps members, in reflecting on their experiences, have described their motivations to join the program as idealistic, ambitious, and “profound drives to effect educational change” (Crawford-Garrett, 2012, p. 27) that eventually had to be reconciled with unexpected, harsh realities—both in their placement schools and in the TFA program itself. Matsui (2015) argues that popular culture is the source of this unrealistic idealism about teaching. This hero teacher narrative is a familiar theme in films such as Stand and Deliver, Dangerous Minds, and Freedom Writers, as well as in documentaries such as Waiting for Superman and The Lottery , some of which feature TFA teachers. TFA taps into this vein of popular idealism in its recruitment efforts. This post-intentional phenomenological study sought instances of the hero teacher narrative in the beliefs...

Understanding and Undermining Fake News From the Classroom

Thu, 12 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Essay by Adam Rosenzweig as part of Call for Conversations: Education in the Era of Trump.

Designing an Intervention to Promote Critical Thinking About Statistics in the General Public

Thu, 12 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Essay by Leela Velautham as part of Call for Conversations: Education in the Era of Trump.

Contextualizing Trump: Education for Communism

Thu, 12 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Essay by Curry Malott as part of Call for Conversations: Education in the Era of Trump.

Oklahoma is a Moving Train: On Trump and the (Impossible) Demand for "Neutral" Classrooms in a Red State

Thu, 12 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Essay by Erin Dyke, Sarah Gordon, and Jennifer Job as part of Call for Conversations: Education in the Era of Trump.

Curbing Ignorance and Apathy (Across the Political Spectrum) Through Global Citizenship Education

Thu, 12 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Essay by Michael Thier as part of Call for Conversations: Education in the Era of Trump.

Can the DREAM Still Exist?

Thu, 12 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Poem by Cheryl Burleigh as part of Call for Conversations: Education in the Era of Trump.

Made You Look: Reflecting on the Trump Election and Patterns of False Response

Thu, 12 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Essay by Adam Freas and Jesus Limon-Guzman as part of Call for Conversations: Education in the Era of Trump.

For Girls Made of Fire

Thu, 12 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Poem by Eleni Eftychiou as part of Call for Conversations: Education in the Era of Trump.

Reimagining Educational Research: A Conversation

Wed, 27 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

The following is a transcript of an interview between the Dean of the University of California Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education, Prudence Carter, and UC Berkeley’s outgoing Vice Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion, Na’ilah Suad Nasir, recorded at the 2017 Graduate School of Education Research Day.

Call for Conversations: Education in the Era of Trump

Wed, 27 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000
In 2014, the BRE Editorial Board felt compelled to step outside the structures of traditional academic publishing and provide a space for a wide array of voices—within and beyond academia—to engage in an open and dynamic dialogue. We issued our first Call for Conversations (CFC) to solicit written and multimedia pieces on the intersection between the Black Lives Matter movement and public education. Following the 2016 Presidential Election, we revived the CFC in order to provide an intellectual space for individuals to reflect upon and make sense of what the election of Donald Trump would mean for public education in the United States. Again, we were compelled to facilitate a dialogue among individuals from a range of perspectives in order to build community and democratize knowledge. At a time of deep political, cultural, economic, and racial division in our country, we invited the broader education community to exchange ideas and reflections about how we got to this moment and...

Editors' Introduction

Wed, 27 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000
Introduction to Volume 7, Issue 1.

Editors' Introduction

Mon, 8 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000
Introduction to Volume 6, Issue 2.

Righting Technologies: How Large-Scale Assessment Can Foster a More Equitable Education System

Sun, 1 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

For the last century, the quality of large-scale assessment in the United States has been undermined by narrow educational theory and hindered by limitations in technology. As a result, poor assessment practices have encouraged low-level instructional practices that disparately affect students from the most disadvantaged communities and schools. In this historical and theoretical review, we examine the misalignment between educational theory and large-scale assessment practices that rely upon technology, using writing assessment as a case in point. Drawing upon sociocultural theory and critical software studies as conceptual frameworks, we find that today’s software-powered technologies, although capable of taking progressive educational ideals to scale, have not been used for these purposes. Our proposed solution is to shift from using technologies to assess predetermined samples of evidence of learning to using technologies to facilitate complex and negotiated models of assessment....

Translanguaging: Definitions, Implications, and Further Needs in Burgeoning Inquiry

Sun, 1 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

The term translanguaging has appeared with growing frequency in research about the education of linguistic minority students. Amid increasing application of the term, concern emerges regarding the consistency of its definitions and characterizations, specifically with respect to the term’s social justice implications, which risk dilution. Early instances (García, 2007, 2009a) position the term as both a pedagogical strategy for supporting multilingual learners and a critique of existing conceptualizations of language and bilingualism that have historically marginalized particular speech communities. In this review of recent literature, I analyze 53 texts published between 1996 and 2014 for their definitions, exemplifications, and attributed implications of translanguaging, as an ontological perspective on language and as a set of teaching practices. In the review, I find that although the term has largely maintained its sociolinguistic critique,...

Homophobic Expression in K-12 Public Schools: Legal and Policy Considerations Involving Speech that Denigrates Others

Sun, 1 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This article examines an education policy matter that involves homophobic speech in public schools. Using legal research methods, two federal circuit court opinions that have examined the tension surrounding anti-LGBTQ student expression are analyzed. This legal analysis provides non-lawyers some insight into the current realities of student speech jurisprudence in public schools and offers school leaders guidance about how they might address speech that denigrates other students. It also proposes how courts might reconsider analyzing homophobic expression in public schools under existing precedent.

The Ballot Initiative and Other Modern Threats to Public Engagement in Educational Policymaking

Sun, 1 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This paper situates recent changes in educational policymaking, especially the increased use of the ballot initiative, within larger historical trends related to democratic engagement in policy development. I conduct an integrative literature review that combines conceptual analyses with findings from empirical investigations into new policymaking tactics and their influence on policy development. Specifically, I explore (a) the discourses justifying policy priorities over time, and (b) the role of democratic engagement in dominant modes of policymaking. I demonstrate that various sources combine to tell a troubling story about the longstanding exclusion of the public from policymaking regarding its public schools. Further, I argue that, perhaps paradoxically, the increased use of the ballot initiative only exacerbates this trend. Ultimately, I use results from the reviewed research to ask if there is a better way to make policy, one that aspires to higher democratic ideals.

Engaging Diversity and Marginalization through Participatory Action Research: A Model for Independent School Reform

Sun, 1 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Authored by a university researcher, school practitioner, and high school student, this article examines how independent schools can utilize participatory action research (PAR) to bolster diversity and inclusion efforts. A case study approach was taken to showcase a two-year PAR project at a progressive independent school that sought to: (a) enrich institutional knowledge of student diversity, (b) capture the present-day schooling experiences of historically marginalized students in independent school settings, and (c) develop a dynamic action plan to ameliorate school issues that emerged through the PAR inquiry process. Committed to institutional research that informs school policy and practice, we argue that PAR provides a rigorous, student-centered, and democratic model for independent school reform.

From Discipline to Dynamic Pedagogy: A Re-conceptualization of Classroom Management

Sun, 1 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

The purpose of this article is to re-conceptualize the definition of classroom management, moving away from its traditional definition rooted in discipline and control toward a definition that focuses on the creation of a positive learning environment. Integrating innovative, culturally responsive classroom management theories, frameworks, and strategies from contemporary educators, this article examines a new theoretical and conceptual foundation for classroom management—the Dynamic Classroom Management Approach (DCMA)—which consolidates these ideas into one cohesive framework. Four major components of DCMA are examined in detail: (a) flexibility and adaptability in one’s management style, (b) understanding the context of students’ diverse backgrounds, (c) effective pedagogy, and (d) creating a positive classroom culture and community. Each component focuses on why and how educators can meet the needs of all students to create a positive learning environment that proactively...

Minority Serving Institutions: A Data-Driven Student Landscape in the Outcomes-Based Funding Universe

Sun, 1 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) emerged in response to a history of racial inequity and social injustice due to racial and ethnic minorities’ lack of access to Predominately White Institutions (PWIs). Enrolling 20% of the nation’s college students, MSIs are an integral part of U.S. higher education. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the contributions that MSIs are making to postsecondary education, specifically contributions related to performance with men of color; teacher education; science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education; and outcomes measures within two-year MSIs. We use descriptive statistics from the National Center for Educational Statistics and the National Science Foundation to call for deep consideration of the unique mission MSIs serve, especially with regard to educating low-income students of color within the universe of outcomes and performance-based evaluation. We conclude with recommendations and implications for policy.

Editors' Introduction

Thu, 8 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000
Introduction to Volume 6, Issue 1.

Editors' Introduction

Mon, 4 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000
Introduction to Volume 5, Issue 2.

Call for Conversations

Mon, 4 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

As the academic year of 2014–2015 began, the killing of Mike Brown, the failure to indict Darren Wilson, and the protests and contentious dialogue surrounding these events again exposed fissures that exist in society as a result of (but not limited to) the dynamics of race, class, and gender. In response to these events, and in an effort to engage in dialogue with the educators, students, protestors, and academics who were participating in these movements, the Berkeley Review of Education issued its first “Call for Conversations” (CFC). This is an edited selection of the short works first published on our website in January and March of 2014.

Vulnerable Manhood: Collaborative Testimonios of Latino Male Faculty

Fri, 1 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Drawing from Espino, Vega, Rendón, Ranero, and Muñiz (2012), the authors of this article utilize dialogue partners to develop collaborative testimonios of Latino male faculty. We center the importance of engaging in vulnerability while embracing peer support to address issues of isolation, marginalization, and other challenges that Latino male faculty experience in higher education. We then develop and discuss the implications of a homebodied intellectual manhood, which we define as an identity that has emancipatory potential related to self-authorship, knowledge creation, negotiation of power in academia, and pursuit of social justice-oriented practices.

Educating Competitive Students for a Competitive Nation: Why and How Has the Chinese Discourse of Competition in Education Rapidly Changed Within Three Decades?

Fri, 1 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000
In the late 1980s, the Chinese government instituted massive educational reforms to promote competition between schools and between students. By the late 1990s, however, educational reforms shifted to regulating and reducing competition in primary and secondary education. Why did a rapid policy swing occur? What was the rationale for the policy change? This article examines the Chinese discourse of competition in education by presenting a textual analysis of 101 commentary articles published by Chinese educators between 1986 and 2014. It reports two different views of competition among Chinese educators, one of which strongly prevailed throughout the 28 years. It also documents historical change in the authors’ perceptions of competition: in the late 1980s, as a powerful solution to the educational and social problems facing China, and, by the late 1990s, as a major educational problem itself.

The Invisible Tax: Exploring Black Student Engagement at Historically White Institutions

Fri, 1 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Given the upsurge of political demonstrations by Black students in response to the highly publicized killings of unarmed Black people, this paper explores student engagement theory through the racialized experiences of Black students at Historically White Institutions (HWIs). Employing autoethnography and analyzing secondary literature on historical and contemporary experiences of Black students in higher education, this paper argues that traditional readings of student engagement theory fail to capture the complexities of Black student engagement. In confronting anti-Blackness, these students pay an invisible tax that manifests in the mental, physical, and emotional resources that could be allocated to promote success in the campus environment but are instead utilized to merely survive as students. Black students experience a set of inherent dilemmas; they are both invested in higher education for social uplift, and they simultaneously employ Black nationalist ideals through...

Demographic Differences in Adolescent Time Attitude Profiles in an Urban High School: A Person-Oriented Analysis Using Model-Based Clustering

Fri, 1 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

The purpose of the study was to use model-based clustering to identify adolescent time attitude profiles in a sample of students from an urban high school using Adolescent Time Inventory-Time Attitude (ATI-TA) scores and to examine the association of ATI-TA profiles with demographic variables and grade point average (GPA). Three ATI-TA profiles were identified— Positives, Ambivalent, and Conflicted—two of which were similar to clusters identified in previous studies. Results indicated that gender and grade were not associated with cluster membership. However, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and GPA were related to cluster membership. Although overall effect sizes for socioeconomic status and ethnicity were small, post-hoc analyses suggested that differences among ethnic groups should be investigated further. There were substantial GPA differences between some clusters (Cohen’s d = .36 – 1.27). Future directions for research on adolescent time attitude profiles should include...

Homonormativity, Charternormativity, and Processes of Legitimation: Exploring the Affective-Spatio-Temporal-Fixed Dimensions of Marriage Equality and Charter Schools

Thu, 1 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Over the past five years, marriage equality and charter schools have emerged at the forefront of political conversations about equality and rights. Some argue that these policies extend access to certain benefits and opportunities to historically oppressed communities, thus furthering liberalism and egalitarianism. In this article, I engage these arguments by exploring how and why people from dominant cultures come to support marriage equality or charter schools despite not directly benefitting from these policy initiatives. Drawing upon queer theory and critical education policy studies, I utilize two terms—homonormativity and charternormativity—to describe how public arguments supporting marriage equality and charter schools elevate particular identities and normative behaviors for gay people and people of color. I theorize these similarities to reveal a process of policy legitimation that I call the affective-spatio-temporal-fixed—a concept that provides insight into why...

Exploring the Educational Implications of the Third Space Framework for Transnational Asian Adoptees

Thu, 1 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Transnational Asian adoptees are a unique and understudied population that potentially faces oppression and confusion. Educational institutions are often unresponsive to the needs of immigrant groups, particularly ones with unique circumstances like transnational Asian adoptees. Not only is there a gap generally in the critical and empirical literature across fields when it comes to this population, but it is almost entirely missing from the educational literature. This conceptual paper contributes a better understanding of transnational adoptees through a third space framework. We seek to critically analyze and synthesize the literature on transnational Asian adoptees. The outcome of the investigation bridges the adoption and education literature, situating it within the educational context. In doing so, we present educational implications of transnational Asian adoption that lay the groundwork for much needed empirical analyses.

Inter-District School Choice: Transfer Policy and Practice in a Fragmented Metropolitan Region

Thu, 1 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Detrimental side effects of the politics of localism include socioeconomic and racial inequalities across fragmented contiguous school districts. Inequality follows patterns of neighborhood segregation and suburban expansion. Some regions approach these issues through collaborative models of cross-district school choice that focus shared resources toward reducing disparities. In Calderon County, California2, however, districts have elected to use a non- collaborative, voluntary, and colorblind inter-district transfer plan, in which district administrators evaluate requests on a case-by-case basis. Interviews with these administrators and local citizens reveal a process plagued by a history of racial and socioeconomic division that may be exacerbating stratification. This study demonstrates that administrators, who often interact directly with families, wield extraordinary policy and decision-making power, significantly controlling inter-district mobility in the region. While...

Editors' Introduction

Thu, 20 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000
Introduction to Volume 5, Issue 1.

Assessment tools to differentiate between language differences and disorders in English language learners

Thu, 20 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000
English language learners (ELLs) who are in the process of acquiring English as a secondlanguage for academic purposes, are often misidentified as having Language LearningDisabilities (LLDs). Policies regarding the assessment of ELLs have undergone many changesthrough the years, such as the introduction of a Response to Intervention (RTI) model, assessmentin both first and second languages, and utilization of supplemental assessments. The purpose ofthis study is to take stock of the assessment tools and district policies that are in place to make adifferential diagnosis. A total of 75 participants from California school districts, consisting ofspeech language pathologists, school psychologists, special educators, and paraprofessionals,completed an online survey. The results indicate that while professionals in the field utilizestandardized cognitive abilities tests, informal assessments, and bilingual language tests as part oftheir assessment battery, there is still a need for...

A feminist perspective on the school-to-labor pipeline

Thu, 20 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000
Today, women across race and class categories graduate high school and college at higherrates than men (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012). According to Marxist reproduction theories, schoolsmaintain social hierarchies by academically rewarding the elite. Yet, despite educational gains,women remain materially and symbolically unequal, proving to be exceptions to reproductionframeworks (Fraser, 2009). This paper examines females’ anomalous success through a feministpoststructuralist lens (Weedon, 1987). It critiques Marxist and feminist approaches to educationalinequality for narrowly defining academic achievement and missing the effects of genderreproduction in schools. It presents an alternative understanding of academic success, one thatincorporates gender performance, by examining how the discourse of “separate spheres” informsthe dialectical relationship between schools and labor. By reviewing the theoretical, empirical,and historical accounts of schools and the labor market, the paper...

Editors' Introduction

Thu, 27 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000
Introduction to Volume 4, Issue 2.

Black high school students’ critical racial awareness, school-based racial socialization, and academic resilience

Wed, 1 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

This research focuses on how Black high school students' perceptions of their school-based racial socialization and their racial identities impact their attitudes and dispositions toward school. The author examined the intersection of racial identity and school culture by examining how Black students describe their context-based racial identity and the racialized aspects of their schools’ cultures. The purpose of this research is to help educators who work with Black students understand how to apply a developmental psychology framework that foregrounds the importance of ecology and phenomenology and can be used to leverage the relationship between strong racial identity and academic resilience. PVEST (Spencer, 1997; 2001) provides a psychological framework for educators to both assess the differential identity formation processes of their students and how they can help students navigate the identity formation process.

Disproportionality fills in the gaps: Connections between achievement, discipline and special education in the School-to-Prison Pipeline

Wed, 1 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

The focus on the achievement gap has overshadowed ways in which school systems constrain student achievement through trends of racial disproportionality in areas such as school discipline, special education assignment, and juvenile justice. Using Critical Race Theory, we reframe these racial disparities as issues of institutionalized racism. First, we examine specific education policies and laws that contribute to racialized populations becoming part of the School-to-Prison Pipeline. Second, using a state-level case study in Colorado, we illustrate through critical race spatial analysis the increasing overrepresentation of students of color as they move through the School-to-Prison Pipeline from public schools to the juvenile justice system. Finally, we discuss suggestions for improving racial equity and reducing the flow of the School-to-Prison Pipeline.

Editors' Introduction

Mon, 24 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction to Volume 4, Issue 1, with the theme of challening dominant frameworks.

New Orleans Education Reform: A Guide for Cities or a Warning for Communities? (Grassroots Lessons Learned, 2005-2012)

Thu, 7 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu, co-chair of the Senate Public Charter School Caucus inWashington, DC, hosted a forum for education policymakers. It centered on New Orleans-StyleEducation Reform: A Guide for Cities (Lessons Learned, 2004-2010), a report published by thecharter school incubator New Schools for New Orleans (NSNO). Through human capital andcharter school development, the report asserts, New Orleans has become a national leader ineducation reform. In this essay, members of Urban South Grassroots Research Collective,including education scholars and those affiliated with longstanding educational and culturalorganizations in New Orleans, reveal that such reform has been destructive to African Americanstudents, teachers, and neighborhoods. Inspired by critical race theory and the role of experientialknowledge in challenging dominant narratives, authors draw heavily on testimony fromcommunity-based education groups, which have typically been ignored, regarding the inequitableeffects...

Black Radicals Make for Bad Citizens: Undoing the Myth of the School to Prison Pipeline

Wed, 9 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Over the past ten years, the analytic formation of the school to prison pipeline has come to dominate the lexicon and general common sense with respect to the relationship between schools and prisons in the United States. The concept and theorization that undergirds its meaning and function do not address the root causes that are central to complex dynamics between public education and prisons. This paper argues that in place of the articulation of the school to prison pipeline, what is needed is a nuanced and historicized understanding of the racialized politics pertaining to the centrality of education to Black liberation struggles. The result of such work indicates that the enclosure of public education foregrounds the expansion of the prison system and consequently, schools are not a training ground for prisons, but are the key site at which technologies of control that govern Black oppression are deemed normal and necessary.